Lesser Of Two Evils
by AZTECPHENOM
Summary: The galaxy's most wanted murderer may just be her safest bet. Maybe.
1. Something Wicked

So many plot bunnies, so little time. This is just an intro to another story that I couldn't get out of my mind.

So PLEASE let me know... should I continue? Or should I stick with my first story?

Disclaimer: It's been established...I own nothing.

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**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

Heat waves shimmered up from the pavement of the bustling Badjal marketplace, blistering the feet of the shoeless urchins who wandered there begging for change, bread, anything. The collective smell of unwashed bodies and heat-spoiled fruit permeated the air; and the wealthy women who had ventured into the square pulled their scarves up in a vain attempt to hide from the stench. Vendors hid behind the shades of their carts, only venturing into the sunlight to shoo away beggars and stray dogs. Store owners posted 'Please Keep Doors Closed' signs, hoping to keep only cool air cycling through their shops.

Two miles away the New Mecca Spaceport loomed over the city like great shining tyrant, all steel and glass.

Imam Abu al-Walid walked across the tarmac into the air-conditioned terminal, past the lavish shops selling souvenirs and travel necessities and into the men's lavatory. He gathered his embroidered robes around him and glanced around the stalls, ensuring he was indeed alone in the pristine restroom. Hurrying over to the sinks he turned on a faucet, removed his glasses, and splashed the cold water onto his face.

He strode over to the couch in the corner and collapsed onto it. He stared blankly at the opposite wall for a long while, then lowered his head into trembling hands and wept.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

No more than a mile from the poverty-stricken streets of Badjal, Audrey al-Walid sat in the window of her upstairs bedroom looking into the garden below where her little sister Ziza played in the grass with one of the maids. The little girl squealed in delight as the maid Fatima splashed her with water from the ornate fountain. The stench of the market didn't reach her here, only the smell of opium incense and the meal being prepared in the kitchen downstairs.

Her mother Lajjun called for her to wash for dinner, but she remained stationary staring out into the world beyond the safe confines of the Imam's gated estate. A sudden gust of wind from across the arid terrain swept the scent of the marketplace in the valley below into her room, rustling her crimson bed curtains and scattering the papers that sat on her computer desk. Instead of recoiling from the fetid odor from the streets below, Audrey leaned out of her window inhaling deeply, eyes closed, wistful smile playing about her lips.

"Miss Audrey," a voice called politely from outside her door, "Mrs. al-Walid asks me to inform you that dinner is almost ready; the Imam will be arriving shortly and the guests within the hour."

As she pulled back from the window, the expression of pleasant reflection on Audrey's face melted back into a look of placid indifference.

"Thank you Salam," she replied pulling the window closed, "I'll be down in five minutes."

She made her way into her private bathroom and closed the door behind her. Opening the medicine cabinet set retrieved a box of sandalwood and spice soap; she inhaled deeply almost shuddering as the heady aroma flooded her senses. She washed her face and hands before twisting her hair into an elegant bun.

As she shut the medicine cabinet her reflection caught her eye and she stared into the mirror tracing the contours of her face with soft fragrant hands, manicured nails painted a muted pink.

Seven years ago her hands had been scabbed; dirt streaked and cut up. Her nails had been chewed down to the quick, rimmed with grime and grit. Her hair had been hacked unevenly, face streaked with sweat and tears, pinched with hunger. But then again, seven years ago Ziza hadn't been her sister, Lajjun hadn't been her mother, she didn't live in a six bedroom estate with maids and a cook. Seven years ago she hadn't been Audrey al-Walid at all.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Dinner went as it always did.

The unfailingly banal exchanges of 'oh, you must tell me where you bought that chaise in the sitting room' and 'isn't that proposed tariff ridiculous' and 'have you heard the Caliph's son has decided to join the Helion air force?'

Audrey sat across the table from Lajjun silently pushing her braised quail breast around the plate. Her private tickle war with Ziza, who sat next to her, had ended after the salad course and since then she'd detached herself from the event at the table. Now she amused herself by counting the stones set in Lajjun's brooch. They caught the light of the candles set around the table and reflected colorful prisms onto the ceiling.

_Red, blue, orange… _

A soft nudge under the table drew her from her thoughts. Looking around she caught Abu's warm smile, he nodded down the table. Someone had been talking to her.

Turning she saw the table's attention had suddenly been focused on her. She flushed slightly, squirming as prickling heat crept up her chest onto her face.

"I'm sorry," she apologized quietly, to whom she still wasn't sure.

"Of course darling," an elderly woman – Minister Rahirim – replied gently, "I was simply inquiring as to whether or not you had applied at the university yet. The Imam tells me that you are an excellent student, top of your class."

Audrey ducked her head, exhibiting the expected modesty and docility of a young upper class woman.

"Yes, ma'am," she replied, "I am to begin studies there in the fall."

The older woman fingered the folds of her chiffon stole and smiled genially, "Very good dear."

And then it was over. The adults returned their attention back to the vital conversation of furniture stores and travel destinations.

As the moon climbed high into the sky casting a dim blue glow in through the windows, the talk began to dwindle. One after another the guests excused themselves bestowing many praises and thanks to the hostess for the delicious meal.

From the room behind the kitchen Fatima and Salam appeared and began clearing the dishes. Abu disappeared into his book-lined study; Lajjun vanished into her powder room to begin her nightly skin renewal regimen. The house was quiet save of the chirruping of crickets outside and the clinking of pots and pans in the kitchen. Audrey scooped the groggy toddler up from the couch and walked up the stairs into her nursery.

After dressing her in a soft gown , Audrey tucked the girl into her bed and walked back down the stairs and into the garden. It was a warm night; the city below was quiet save for the occasional wail of sirens, and the balmy night air cooled her slightly damp skin as she sat on a wicker lawn chair wiggling her bare toes in the springy moist grass.

She unpinned her tresses and shook them out around her shoulders wrinkling her nose as her scalp tingled at the sudden increase of blood flow. She flung her sheer green shoulder wrap over her face at stared up at the jade-tinged moon.

Summer nights had always been her favorite. When she was a little girl – before she was Miss Audrianne al-Walid – she was simply Jack. And summer nights had been the most enjoyable for kids like her.

Children who slept in the parks, in the alleys, on the rooftops of buildings in cities just like New Mecca. On summer nights there was no need to seek out dumpsters, doorways, and cars to provide some refuge from the driving rain or snow. A kid could meander into the heart of the closest square and find more comrades, more children of the street gathered around some impromptu trash bin bonfire, sharing hunks of bread, pieces of fruit, wedges of cheese and – when fortune smiled upon these rejected souls – bits of meat. If the local police arrived they would scatter, only to congregate on another block a few minutes later.

Companions in the spring and summer months were competitors come fall. Rivals, vying for the fullest dumpster, the largest square of cardboard box. The weak – or sometimes just the unlucky – ended up frozen in the gutter. They were not missed come the next summer, for there were always new faces to replace the old, they were interchangeable.

Surely no one noticed when she had faded into oblivion. No one had missed her as she wandered through the Interplanetary Spaceport of New Johannesburg, fingering the stolen credits in her pocket. No parents worried about her as she boarded the ill-fated long-range transport vessel _Hunter-Gratzner_. When the ship collided with whatever matter of space debris that sent it hurdling into the atmosphere of a cursed planet, she was just another scared passenger.

She was no one until the lights went out. And then, because of that cursed monthly flow, she was the marked woman, the intended meal of a thousand chittering winged beasts that stalked her through the dark. The man with the badge had tried to have her killed, gutted like a piece of bait. A sacrifice to whatever terrible god ruled the barren planet. No one cared whether she lived or died except for a grieving holy man, a pilot living on borrowed time…and a man with smoldering silver eyes. He knew her better than the rest, this murder lurking in the shadows; he wasn't really a man at all. But he had saved her when the razor toothed monsters clawed and chewed their way through the remaining survivors; when blue entrails rained from the heavens and the ground grew slippery with blood; when the sounds of their own screams were drowned out by the maddening chatters…

"Miss Audrey," a gentle voice questioned from besides her. She jolted in the chair, almost tipping it over.

Small hands landed on her shoulder and she turned her head. Fatima. Disorientation faded, and realization set in. She had fallen asleep in the garden, the meticulously pruned and snipped garden, inside of a walled complex far away from the trashcan bonfires and winged monsters.

"You must have fallen asleep ma'am." Six and a half years as Miss Audrey al-Walid and it never failed to unnerve her when a woman old enough to be her grandmother called her 'ma'am'.

Nodding she gathered up her scarf and made her way back into the house. Making her way past the dining room she noticed a muted light emanating from under the Imam's study door. He was a night-owl like herself, she decided to say goodnight; but as she approached the door the sound of an urgent hushed argument met her ears. She paused and then turned to leave when her name caught her attention. She hovered closer to the door placing her hands on the doorframe to support her weight.

"He is insistent, Lajjun," Abu whispered furiously.

"Hundreds of women would freely throw themselves at his feet. She's just a girl!"

"I know this…"

"She is younger than his _children_!"

"Lajjun, I _know_ this…"

"It is _unacceptable_. Tell him no."

Audrey pressed he ear against the cool surface of the door, a cold stone of anxiety began to form in the pit of her stomach.

"You know as well as I, that it is not that simple. He is the _Caliph_, one does not simply refuse him."

"We are not an authoritarian state, Abu," she hissed vehemently, "there is the Counsel. Surely, they will never…"

"He _owns_ the Counsel, Lajjun. Half of them are on his personal payroll and the rest fear him too much to oppose."

"She is just a _child_…" Lajjun broke off there, and through the heavy oak Audrey could swear she heard quiet sobs.

"Nothing is official yet," she heard him sigh and then push back his chair; "I will continue to deter him until I can figure out another plan."

At the sound of footsteps Audrey silently slipped from the hallway, up the stairs and into her room. She listened for the sounds of Abu and his wife retreating into their bedroom across the hall before getting undressed and slipping into bed.

The cool cotton sheets felt wonderful against her heated skin, but they brought her no comfort. She lay on her back watching the lights of city below flicker across her ceiling; she was safe here in her second story bedroom with a guard posted at the front gate. She told herself she was protected, but in the back of her mind she sensed a black presence, darker than the very depths of the planet she had survived all those years ago, closing in on the little circle of light she had come to know.

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	2. Sunset

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**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

The sun beat mercilessly down on the backs of the workers as they toiled relentlessly in the fields. Dust stuck to the sweat that poured from their brows and dried, giving them the appearance of clay statues. They hustled back and forth, baskets tied to their backs, under the watchful eyes of overseer's who prowled the fields.

Audrey solemnly watched them from the window of the car as it sped across the valley. When they had begun descent from the mansion riddled hillside into the bustling city she had felt electric anticipation bubbling up inside of her. It dissipated as swiftly as it had come when the driver had veered around the outskirts of the city.

Now, as they passed the sun baked fields, a silent elation began threading through her body once more…they were headed towards the sea. While she stared out the window Abu watched her closely from the corner of his eye. As the smell of burning crops was replaced by the tang of salty ocean air a small smile worked its way onto her face, and Abu swallowed as a fresh wave of guilt overtook him. He turned away.

Before the car had come to a complete stop Audrey had flung open the door and rushed out onto the sand, laughing as the waves broke and crashed upon the shore. Abu settled himself on a dune of grass covered sand and watched the girl as she frolicked back in forth in the surf, kicking water into the shy in glittering arches. Her cheeks flushed with exhilaration and she laughed as she darted through a flock of birds sending them fluttering into the air.

"Child," he called to her, remorse thick in his voice. She turned and looked to him, smile faltering at the unshed tears in his eyes. The conversation she overheard had been all but forgotten, but now it rushed back to her in alarming clarity.

(_…one does not simply refuse him…_)

"Yes, Abu." She seated herself next to him but refused to tear her gaze away from the sun as it sank slowly into the ocean. Cool air whipped off the surface of the water and in to her face, and for a fleeting moment she was sure the entire planet had gone completely silent. In her mind the impending darkness closed in still.

Abu took her hand lovingly in his and brushed her hair out of her eyes. Audrey smiled and leaned into the caress. "What is it baba?"

His wise eyes settled on hers, and he seemed to grow old before her.

"My dear child," he said, "you have been a constant light in my life for the past seven years. I love you as much as any father could love a child."

"I know," she whispered tracing the lines on his hands with her finger.

"I have failed you Jacqueline." Her spine stiffened sharply, little beads of sweat forming above her lips. Jacqueline was the terrified girl, bleeding, and hiding in the shadows. Jacqueline was not to be talked about. She hated the name with a black passion, hated what it meant: alone, afraid, weak.

"My name is Audrey," she said slowly taking care to pronounce every word. "I am not…_her_."

"You are an exceptionally intelligent young woman," he soothed squeezing her hand softly; "you have gone far beyond my expectations in every aspect of your life."

He tilted her chin to meet his gaze, "But I am no fool. I see the fire that burns within you, the yearning for a life beyond our garden walls. You try to smother it, extinguish it with polite banter and carefully practiced etiquette; but it burns still. You are, and always will be, Jack. And I will always love you for it."

"I don't want to be her," she whispered drawing her knees up to her chest. "She was nothing. She was weak…"

"She survived," Abu interrupted gently, "… _you_ survived."

As Abu began to talk, she fell into silence. The crashing of the waves muted and then turned into the flapping of wings, pulsing, swishing around her. The sun sank below the surface, and darkness crawled into her mind pushing, prodding at some uncontrollable emotion. Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed it down, relishing the bitter acidity. Pain. Pain was always the best reminder.

* * *

**Asharal Palace, Helion V**

The stone walls were slick and wet with centuries of accumulated algae. No light penetrated the rooms darkness, no breeze freshened the fetid air which was rank with the scent of sweat, blood, and human waste. No sound broke the silence save for the steady drip of water trickling down the stones, that and the shallow ragged breathing of the woman chained to the wall.

If she had a name, she couldn't remember it.

Not a woman really, just an adolescent girl naked except for the manacles digging in to her raw and blood crusted wrists. Her budding breasts marred with an assortment of bites and scratches. Dirt and blood streaked her body, her stomach swollen with infection and heavy with child. Her lips cracked into a bloody smile. Yes, she was pregnant with the unholy child of a very holy man. And for that she would be dead soon. She rejoiced in that fact.

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**Oh yeah, did I mention this story is kinda dark? No?...SURPRISE!!**

**Let me know what you think!**


	3. Stronghold

**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

A thin crimson line blossomed from her skin, thin fingers gripped the razor. Her hands shook and she cut deep. Her breath came in ragged gasps and she squeezed her eyes shut willing the fear to subside. One hand slid the razor across the inside of a thigh; the other hand gripped the bathroom counter.

Blood trickled down her leg and she flung the razor aside, leaned forward and vomited into the basin of her porcelain sink. She caught her reflection in the mirror and heaved again as the room around her seemed to pulse and vibrate. The rush of blood in her ears became deafening and she pushed frantically back from the sink pinching herself hard enough to leave bruises. It wasn't enough. The pain wasn't enough. Her nails dug furrows into her stomach as she clawed at herself and she sunk to the floor hyperventilating.

Panic, hot and raw raged inside of her. She felt it burning through her, felt it wrapping around her lungs. Icy fingers wrapped around her heart and began to penetrate.

_Three hours until dinner. I could be at the spaceport. Bags are packed. Run. _

A strangled cry escaped her throat, "No!"

_They'll die. I run and they'll all die. He'll kill them. _

A voice screamed 'run' and she clamped a hand over her mouth when she realized it was her own.

Tearing open the sink cabinet she reached around the drain pipe and pulled the syringe from its hiding spot. She tore off the cap, plunged the needle into her thigh, grateful for the intense sting. Liquid fire burned for a fleeting second, and then came the numb.

Curling up into a ball she rocked herself back and forth, relishing the feel of the cold tile floor against her burning skin.

_Rule number one, self control_ – a dark voice resounded in her head.

She opened her eyes and the room had stopped moving.

_No gauge, no shiv…nothing will save you if you lose control –_ the words were hard, sharp. She could feel them rush over her skin, oddly soothing.

She could hear the faint sweet sound of Ziza's laughter.

_You lose control, you die_ – .

**Flashback**

"– _you give in to fear, you're dead. " He stands above her, arms folded, face obscured by shadow._

_Jack sits at his feet, trying not to tremble as hairy legs poked into the skin on her shoulder. Nascipalian wetland tarantula. Fifth most toxic insect in the known galaxy. It's bristles brush against her jugular. _

"_You panic and its game over."_

_She can feel it moving closer to her face and she bites her lip to suppress a scream, her stomach roils. She abhors spiders. She absolutely hates them, and she fears them. _

_She feels his mercurial eyes boring into her; she schools her face into blank apathy. Inside she screams._

"_The spider is a man with a gun to your head. The lethal dose of toxin is a bullet between your eyes. What do you do?"_

_Its feet tickle her scalp. When she feels it moving down her face, hears its clicking mandibles, terror nudges against her brain. _

_Jack swallows; her throat is dry and sticks painfully. She fists her hands and meets his gaze. _

"_Deep breaths lower the heart rate."_

_She inhales, exhales._

"_Keep eye contact."_

_His face gives away nothing. God, she wants to be that._

"_Shift whole body. Slow. Distract him from hands."_

_She slowly, painstakingly reaches her arm up. The spider creeps down onto her chest._

"_Quick turn to the side, slap gun away, attack."_

_In a flash she swipes the spider from her chest, pulls a thin blade from her belt and impales the horrible creature against the canvas of the punching bag. Brown liquid squirts onto her hands, it tingles and that makes her sick. She wipes it onto her faded cargoes and turns to face her instructor._

_He moves out of the shadows and light glints off his narrowed eyes, she feels a thrill run through her, stronger than the fear. A twitch of his lips lets her know that she's done well. And then it's over, his face melts back into detached contempt and he fades back into the shadows. The day's lesson is complete. She is alone…_

**End Flashback**

Audrey inhaled a great shuddering breath as the iron band around her chest relaxed slightly.

_Deep breaths. _

The ache of unused adrenaline faded, the invisible hand that had been pulling her toward the door disappeared.

Audrey rolled over, pressed her face into the bath mat and tried to cry. A facial tic resembling a smile pulled at her features when not a solitary tear was released. Nonetheless, her control was slipping; the pain wasn't enough.

Looking at the chrono she vaguely noted that she had three days left until the Caliph was due for his tri-annual visit to the capital of the Chrislamic nation.

Every day the panic grew stronger.

_I run, and he'll kill them. _

As the beginning of the _adhan_ sounded in the distance calling most of the citizens of New Mecca to prayer, she pulled herself up from the floor.

She wiped the blood from the floor and tucked the syringe back under the sink. From behind glazed eyes Jack watched as the shell she had become walked back into the bedroom and began unpacking the bags that sat on her bed. She would not leave.

Abu had taken her into his home, into his heart, into the light. She would not - _could_ not - run, and bring the Caliph's anger down on his head. She could not control her situation, but she could - she _would_- control her self. She'd fight the panic, she'd beat back the fear with pain. Pain was the best reminder, after all, of why she could never be Jack. She would never be the scared little girl running in the dark again.

She would face her fate, without crying for help from _him_. He had left her once, without so much as a backward glance, and she would rather surrender to her fate than yield to her fear. She would not call on him. He was no savior.

* * *

This chapter was partially inspired by the song "Coma White" by Marilyn Manson. If you read the lyrics you'll understand.

-A.P.


	4. Beholder

**New Mecca, Helion Prime – TWO YEARS EARILER**

Ziza threw back her head and shrieked with laughter as Audrey whisked her around the ballroom. The crowd parted as Audrey whirled through, clutching the toddler to her chest and laughing with uninhibited joy.

Abu watched from one of the many tables in the extravagant hall as his daughters danced through the crowd. Apparently Audrey hadn't realized that the song had changed from an upbeat tempo to a slow classical tune, but it was more likely that she did not care.

Her face was ablaze with vitality, an unadulterated happiness that he had yet to see in the past five years that they had resided in New Mecca. Her laugh echoed through the hall, clear and loud, and his eyes burned with tears of elation.

He had toiled relentlessly for months to ensure that every aspect of her sixteenth birthday was flawless. It had cost him a small fortune, and he would pay it ten times over. He loved her so much it hurt him at times. How like Ziza she was at times. Young and innocent and pure.

When her guard was down, when she slept or played with Ziza, he could, if he watched very closely, catch fleeting glimpses of the girl he had known five years ago. Sometimes it came through as a defiant flash of fire in her eyes, or a mischievous smile, sometimes in an inappropriate joke or comment. He had come to live for those moments, but she had always retreated back into that studied polite sophistication.

Her young spirit had been torn asunder long before she had the opportunity to truly live.

Bitter remorse laced through his body and he was startled to feel the stem of water goblet he held, snap in his hand. Lajjun, with her uncanny ability to understand her husband's needs, leaned into his back and petted his arm soothingly.

"My love," she whispered into his ear, "look at your daughters. They have not a care in the world, they are happy. As you should be."

"It is fleeting, Lajjun," he replied, wearily, "in the morning she will crawl back into herself, into what shell she had created."

"Then let it be fleeting, my love," she purred, waving at Audrey and Ziza as they twirled by, both laughing uncontrollably.

"Let it be and enjoy your daughter's happiness while it lasts, you have earned that."

Sighing in agreement, the father leaned back into his wife's loving embrace and watched with bittersweet joy as his children, his world, spun around the room to the cadence of some unheard song.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

From the balcony of the hall, Caliph Ibrahim Asharal VIII observed the scene beneath him. Ministers, clergymen, Council members, all members of the upper echelon of society milled about beneath him.

Most politely ignored him, and he pointedly disregarded those who didn't. His attendance was customary, the guest of honor was not only a clergyman's daughter, but she was turning sixteen. He would deliver the rite, proclaiming her as a woman eligible for marriage. A tedious job, one that he was considering transferring to a subordinate. Maybe a Minister.

Yet, as boisterous laughter filtered into his private booth his attention was drawn, to the strange girl dancing through the room, twirling and laughing as she flaunted herself. His breath caught in his throat.

Her unsettling green eyes turned upwards as she tilted her head to the gold leafed ceiling, her face was bathed in the glowing light of thousands of candles.

She wore no scarf, and his fingers itched to bury themselves in the thick russet curls that brushed against creamy white shoulders.

She was not beautiful by any conventional means, but the subtle defiance that emanated from her young – almost boyish – frame shook him to the core.

_Not a daughter of New Mecca._

Her girlish laughter tinkled through the hall once more. His eyes never left her face as he stroked himself through the layers of his ceremonial robes.

"The girl in white," he said to the attendant at his side, "who is she?"

"Your Holiness, she is the daughter of Imam Abu al-Walid. Adopted daughter. This is her birthday celebration."

An exotic rhythm began to pour from the speakers and the green-eyed witch began to sway innocently from side to side, eyes closed , hands held up to the heavens. The crowd around her faded away and he caressed himself in time with her movements.

Shoving his robes aside, he took himself in one trembling hand and began to pump furiously. His eyes caught every twitch of her lips, every movement of her lithe young body underneath the lavish silk dress.

His teeth pierced the supple skin of her throat and her saccharine blood bubbled over his tongue. Her tears splattered onto his face and he licked at those as well, shuddering at the sharp contrast the salt provided. Hot fear radiated from her skin and he drank in the scent of it, feeling giddy as she hiccupped in terror beneath him.

In his mind she threw her head back in agony; fantasy and reality overlapped as she raised her face to the ceiling. He exploded into his robes, and her figure swam in front of his unfocused eyes.

The private booth was silent save for his ragged panting. A young servant girl kneeled at his feet and began to clean him; her eyes remained blank as he pulled her face into his lap. The other attendant's eyes remained averted, his face as vacant as hers.

The music below faded, "Your Excellency…it is time."

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	5. Unwrapped

**Zorian Station, New Syria – Six Years Earlier**

Jack's skin almost glowed underneath the pulsing neon lights. The deep base shook her from head to toe, and reverberated up her spine. She twisted and ground her hips to the beat of the music, hands flung carelessly in the air.

She inhaled the scent of sweat, cheap alcohol, even cheaper cologne, and smiled. Callused palms skimmed over the exposed skin of her stomach and she gyrated harder. The alcohol had long ago warmed her body. Fingertips skimmed over her budding breasts and a strange wetness settled between her legs.

An arm snaked around her and pulled her hard against a large unyielding body. Her sweat slicked skin tingled with mixed anticipation and apprehension. She willed it away.

She was in control. Because he had taught her how to be in control. She was like him now. Strong and deadly. She could take care of herself. Because he had taught her. She was _not_ going to spend the next week confined in the ship while he got to walk the streets.

A small frosted shot glass appeared in front of her, a hand tipped the glass to her lips. She winced as the amber liquid slid down her throat. It burned, and then it warmed, and then it numbed.

She danced harder.

When the song ended she was floating. The body behind her gripped her close, and she was grateful because she didn't want to fly away.

The cold night air bit through her clothes, and she jerked in surprise. How had she gotten outside?

A hand guided her towards a car, and she stumbled. Where was she going?

"Come back to my place baby."

The hand pushed harder and she resisted slightly.

"I can't," she said.

"Sure you can, honey." The hand pushed again, and she looked up, vision swimming, into light brown eyes. They smiled back down at her and she giggled slightly. "You ain't no baby, are you?"

"Fuck no," she slurred, outraged at the accusation. She was a killer. She had killed for him, and he taught her how to do it better. He would be so mad. He was always telling her what to do.

She wrenched open the door and fell into the leather seats, "I ain't no fucking baby."

"That's right sugar." The hand closed the door.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Darkness screamed from all around her. She drifted through nothingness, feather light, completely paralyzed.

Gradually, the pain began to set in. Searing, white hot pain. Her whole body was on fire. She tried to lift her arms, and beat out the flames but found she couldn't move.

She tried to scream. Felt her lips crack, tasted the blood run across her tongue. A dry rasp rattled from between her lips and she recoiled from the stench of old blood on her breath.

Light began filtering through the blackness. Bright fluorescent light. She struggled to open swollen eyes, clean gleaming metal shined from all around her.

Through the fog she began to register her situation . The whirring of a ventilation machine. The steady beep of a heart monitor. Rumbling of a ships engine.

"Jack, my child, you are awake!"

Muscles and tendons groaned as her neck swiveled. "Im-Imam?"

Warm gentle hands on the side of her face. Familiar scents. She felt a tear drop fall onto her face.

"Where- where's Riddick? What happened?"

The hands faltered. "He is…busy, Jack. Our plans have changed. We are headed to New Mecca."

"I thought he didn't want to go there," she whispered, fighting the nausea that threatened to overwhelm.

"He will not be staying. What happened in New Syria…Mr. Riddick cannot remain with us any longer. Many people died, and he is very angry at the moment. Child, I will warn you to stay in this room until we reach our destination. For your own safety."

She remembered everything all at once.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Dust puffed into her eyes as she ground her face into the dirt, suppressing a scream.

Something tore deep inside of her and she couldn't stop the sobbing shriek that ripped from her throat.

"Oh god," she whispered, curling into a shivering ball as she rocked back and forth. "Oh god, please."

Another ripping sensation, she retched. Wetness seeped from between her legs, hot and thick. Her insides were being shredded. She stuck her hand into her jeans, it came back coated in blood.

"Oh fuck," she gasped. The bleeding had never been that bad. In fact, it had stopped completely for the past four months. She was happy because she could go back to being a boy again. Maybe, if she worked real hard, Riddick would come back for her. Maybe he wouldn't be mad anymore. She would be good, she wouldn't let anyone know she was a girl ever again. If only the bleeding would stop.

More tearing deep inside, she could almost hear it. Her stomach convulsed. She screamed again. The dirt stuck to her tears, creating little rivers of mud down her face. Sounds of the marketplace filtered down the alley, drowning out her terrified cries.

A primal instinct told her to bear down, she did. She felt as if she were being rendered in two, something slick and heavy slid out from between her legs, but exhaustion overtook her and she drifted into a dead slumber.

Hours later she awoke on a straw cot. An old woman, wrinkled beyond belief, hovered above her. Children watched her warily from the corner. A mug of thin gruel was shoved towards her, and she ate it greedily. The aching in her stomach was intense, but she stood anyways, shifting uncomfortably around the pad of cloth tied in between her legs. She was still bleeding.

_He won't ever come back for me now. _

Tears started to stream down her face, mixing with the dried dirt.

The woman, obviously misunderstanding the girl's sorrow, pointed to a bundle of bloody cloth and shook her head solemnly. "No baby."

Jack crumpled to the ground, consumed in inconsolable grief that she didn't even understand. The old woman wrapped her up in thin, but incredibly strong arms, and Jack howled until she fell asleep once more.

In the frigid winter morning, Audrey slipped from the silent hut, cradling the bundle of bloody rags in her frail arms. She buried the bundle in the garden beneath her bedroom window, covered the patch with a piece of flagstone, and entered the house to get dressed for school.


	6. Father

**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

OoOoOoOoO

_He carried Audrey through a field of waving black sunflowers. She was limp in arms, dead weight. An altar stood ahead in the distance. He didn't know why, but he had to get her there. He began to jog. Ziza skipped in and out of view ahead of him, humming quietly to herself. He tried to call to her, tell her to move out of his path, but found himself mute. To his left, in the bright light of the day, a great golden chair rode on the backs of silent men and women. On the top sat a faceless man. No matter how hard he ran, they were always right by his side. To his right, in the shadow, walked a young Jack, wide-eyed and smiling. She was hand in hand with a man made of impenetrable shadow. His eyes glowed silver._

_The sunflowers began to bleed, his steps faltered on the slippery ground. The altar loomed ahead. He stumbled, fell, picked her up again and started running. Her body grew heavier by the step._

_Ziza appeared in front of him. She blocked the path. He tried to go around her, but couldn't. He screamed silently. Blood was up to his knees. The altar. _

_Frantically searching, he saw that the moving dais had stopped. The faceless man now stood beside him, flanked by an entourage. He extended one hand in an undeniable offer to carry the girl. With the other hand he plucked a flower from the field and shoved into his gash of a mouth, the flower screamed. Abu recoiled. A tug on his robes. Young Jack. She smiled up at him, winked, motioned to the shadow behind her. Ziza's shoulders were almost submerged. He clutched Audrey tighter._

_Jack spread her hands and shrugged, smirking slightly. He knew that look- _hey, what're ya gonna do_?_

_Ziza began to splutter. The shadow extended it's arms. Ziza choked. He handed Audrey over, and swept his daughter onto his shoulders._

_The faceless man began to shriek. Abu's eyes remain glued to Audrey. The shadow lowered its head, sniffed her, bared its teeth. Jack began to laugh. The shadow produced a blade, smiled at Jack, teeth glinting. Jack laughed harder. It slit Audrey's throat in one smooth motion. Abu screamed._

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

He thrashed about in his sleep, reaching for the shadow. He would kill it.

"Abu…Abu please!" Someone was shaking him. He struck out blindly, wrapped his fingers around a smooth, slim throat. He jerked the attacker underneath him.

Lajjun. Her eyes wide in fear, hands shielding her face. He froze; her body was rigid underneath his, her breath rapid and shallow against his neck.

"Abu," she whimpered, "please." His fingers flew from her neck. He rolled off her and stood.

"Lajjun…I-," he faltered to a stop and she came up off the bed to him.

"You cannot continue this, Abu," she said quietly. "I will not watch my husband worry himself into an early grave."

He glanced wearily around their room, grateful that they faced away from the harsh lights of the city. Audrey thrived on those lights. Some nights, coming home from work, he would see her sitting in the window, watching the city, as he drove up the road and into the estate gates.

"She has made her decision," he answered hollowly; "there is nothing I can do."

"Call for _him_-"

"No. You will never understand," he whispered, pulling away from her.

"Because you will not let me," she answered.

He insisted that he needed fresh air. In actuality, he sought refuge from her accusatory stare.

She hadn't been there when Audrey was still Jack. She hadn't sat in terror, closed up in the med-bay of a stolen mercenary ship, holding a half-dead little girl in her arms, listening to another man's inhuman roars echoing through the walls as he destroyed the neighboring cabin with his bare hands. She hadn't had to tend for an almost comatose girl, alone in an empty house. She had come along after the name had been changed, the hair had grown back, the simpereing smile had been mastered.

She would never understand, and he prayed to god that she would never have to.

He made his way down the stairs, paused at the entry to his study, deciding to read until sleep claimed him once more. Settling into his chair he smoothed his hands over the taught leather, lost in thoughts. Audrey had picked out this recliner for his fifty-third birthday last year. Over-stuffed, with a head rest and extendable foot rest. She had practically bounced with anticipation as she led him blind-folded into his study. It was one of her 'alive moments'.

The thought that she may be dead by his next birthday had him He leaning into trembling hands.

Lajjun would never understand why he could not ask Riddick back into Audrey's life. She did, however, understand the second option. She had heard the rumors whispered around the Council meetings. The ugly secrets that filtered through the ministry. To her the choice was clear, a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. She had not seen Jack's face as he turned his back on them.

He had created this sanctuary for his family, and it served its purpose well.

A noise from the garden drew his attention, he slipped out of his office and crept towards the sound.

A soft thud. Shallow, quiet breaths. The sliding glass door was slightly ajar; he slid it noiselessly open and peered into the moonlit garden.

Audrey knelt, barefoot in the grass, hands resting lightly on a piece of flagstone. Her back heaved underneath the thick cotton nightshirt she wore.

His foot nudged a ceramic pot, her head snapped around. The moon caught her eyes; the wildness he saw there chilled him to the core. She moved protectively over the flagstone, almost reflexively.

He stared, and she slowly backed off of it, eyes never leaving his.

"Imam," she croaked throatily, rolling her head leisurely along her shoulders, "what are you doing up this late?"

He stepped forward, she moved back over the stone.

This was not Audrey he was dealing with. Of that he was sure. The lazy indifference that radiated from her kneeling form confirmed that for him. Audrey would be apologizing for possibly disturbing him, she would offer to make him a cup of tea and sit with him.

The girl in front of him simply crossed her arms and stared insolently at him.

"Sleep seems to have evaded me," he answered slowly, "and you…Jack?"

She flinched, her face working into a series of unidentifiable emotions. The defiance sputtered, then went out like a candle in a hurricane. A sharp pang of sorrow slivered through him. He blinked back the burning in his eyes. There were times he would take Jack at her worst, than Audrey at her very best. This was indeed one of those times.

"I am sorry for waking you baba," she apologized softly.

He closed his eyes as bitter resignation fell down upon his shoulders. He mouthed her next words along with her as she spoke them.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

He allowed her to lead him into the house, numb and suddenly completely exhausted.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The shrill chirping of birds invaded his dreamless sleep. Blinking the room into focus, he found himself slouched over the cool dining room table. The tea sat cold is front of him. He was alone. There was a thin blanket draped across his shoulders. He smiled sadly. Audrey.

He crept back up the stairs, feeling like and intruder in his own house. Halfway up the staircase he paused. Reaching out tentatively, he smoothed his thumb down the silver frame of the picture before him. It had always been his favorite, his girls. Audrey sitting on the rim of the garden fountain, cradling a smiling, toothless infant Ziza.

Leaning closer, he saw that there were tears in her eyes. He had never noticed that before. Nor the wistfulness in her smile. The intensity of her gaze.

A vision of her hunching over the flagstone, crying, flashed through his mind. Fear prickled in the back of his mind. Realization dawned, rampaged into his brain. His glasses clattered down the stairs as he reeled.

"Please," he gasped, swallowing back bile, "please no. Not that." He flew back down the stairs.

The flagstone was slick with morning dew, slippery in his shaking hands. The dirt was soft beneath it. He pulled the stiff ragged bundle gently from the ground, and collapsed back into the grass shaking, stomach roiling.

"My god..."

* * *


	7. False Dawn

****

New Mecca, Helion Prime

Lajjun jerked when the shop door closed behind her. Trepidation crawled up and down her spine, like a spider. She felt as if her body were covered in them.

The stale air of the city was more oppressive than usual that day; she could feel sweat collecting in the valley between her breasts.

"Madame al-Walid," a pleasant voice called, causing her to start once more, "what a pleasure it is. How many I be of service to you this fine day?"

Lajjun reflexively flashed the old man a cordial smile and bowed her head.

"Monsieur LeBeux," she answered, bowing her head further, "I am in need of your…_technical expertise._."

She did not miss the hitch in his breath. Watching him from underneath her lashes, she produced a small disc from the depths of her robes. He did not take it, her stomach dropped.

"I-I am not so familiar with such things…I am just a tailor," he breathed motioning to the fabric laden worktables.

"Do not be coy, Monsieur," she insisted quietly. "Your talents are..._well known_…shall we say?"

He laughed nervously, licked his lips. "Madame, I-it's been many years. The Council…I have been cleared of all charges. It has been many, many years." It was the finality in is voice, she decided later, that started the boiling in her blood.

Her head came up, slowly and regally. Sliding her scarf from her head she advanced on the small man, disc extended in front of her. The steel in her voice surprised even her; it had been many years for her too.

"Deny my request, Monsieur, and I assure you, when time comes, you will wish it were the Council who was judging you."

The threat was essentially empty, but he seemed to collapse into himself so she ran with it.

She offered the disc again; he took it quickly, almost tripping over himself as he hurried into the back room. She followed on his heels. The man fumbled at his computer for what seemed an eternity. The midday sun began to sink below the surrounding hills; her anxiety grew in the fading light.

Finally, the man handed her the decoded disc and it disappeared into her robes again.

"My payment," he asked timidly.

She leveled her gaze at him, smiling slightly, and laid a note on the counter before pushing back out into the bustling crowd of the city.

Her legs shook slightly as she weaved through the crowd, tying her scarf in place once more; but a small smile appeared nonetheless.

_The fire is not so easily extinguished_. She was absurdly pleased with her resolve; the years of pampered comfort had not whittled her down to a simpering housewife so completely after all.

A woman bumped bodily into her, but Lajjun did not falter. She ducked her head as her grin grew; she may not master the streets like she once had, but the instinct was still there.

After the death of her father, her mother had become a rich man's mistress. He had paid for their small apartment, their food, her school. He had even paid Lajjun to disappear when he came to visit. She had taken his money with grim amusement. She would have left for the asking, she had no illusions…her mother was his whore. Business was business, and the money her benefactor flicked at her went straight into an account, not to be touched.

She had met Abu in the girl's clothing shop where she worked. She had personally outfitted Audrey with an entire wardrobe, and had found herself in awe of the attention and affection the man lavished upon this child who was clearly not his wife, nor his blood. In him she saw an opportunity for a life she could never achieve as her mother's 'apprentice'. She was ecstatic when he invited her to lunch at his estate.

She let herself be molded into quintessential wife material, and when the time came, she lay back and reaped the benefits. She had never expected to fall in love with the man, or his young female charge for that matter. But she had, completely and thoroughly.

The girl had been so much like herself; docility folded protectively over raw emotion. A motherless child, Audrey had responded to the woman's affection immediately, despite her best efforts not to.

The car waited on the edge of town, the driver flipping casually through a magazine. She waved aside his scurry to open the door and threw herself into the car. Her robes stuck to her skin, she plucked at them, knocked on the glass separating her from the driver.

"The air please," she called, and then sighed as the icy breeze hit her skin.

Reclining back into the seat she pulled the disc from her pocket and regarded it once more.

"Such a small thing," she muttered to herself, turning it in her hand.

Somewhere on that metallic surface lay her salvation. Her husband's salvation. And possibly, if he so chose, the redemption of one other.

If Audrey felt anything for her, as a mother, as a friend, it paled in comparison to Lajjun's love of the girl. The love of a mother, and more importantly, of a fellow survivor. Abu thought she did not understand, but it was he who played the fool.

He had never known Temir, her beloved older sister; with her loud boisterous laugh and her razor sharp tongue. She had been beautiful, too beautiful, strange and exotic. Just like Audrey. Just like the Caliph's late wife.

They found her mutilated body three days after her twentieth birthday. The Caliph sent his deepest condolences to her father, his Chief of Agriculture. Her father was not fooled. He had heard rumors of the fiend's predilections.

He died two weeks later, hanged for the attempted assassination. Their mother, insolvent and friendless, sunk into the oblivion of drugs, dragging a young Lajjun along with her.

No, Lajjun recognized with crystal clarity what her husband would never understand. The convict's blade would be kinder, more humane, than the Caliph's bond of matrimony. His fear of the unknown made him hesitate; made him unmindful of the danger that danced openly in front of his very face.

She was not so blind. She saw the evil that paraded in the sunlight, and it horrified her more than anything lurking in the shadows ever could.

* * *

Audrey felt herself being pulled from a deep, dreamless sleep. The cotton sheets stuck to her, itchy and chaffing against her oversensitive skin. Her mouth tasted of ash and bile; her eyes ached behind pallid eyelids. The midday sun shone brightly through her bedroom window, the hum of combined city noises filtering quietly in. She vaguely wondered in Helion V would have cities like New Mecca.

_You'll never see the outside of the palace, you know it_. Her stomach heaved.

The roiling in her gut increased tenfold as she glanced at the chrono on her bed side table. One day left. Her legs twitched, almost involuntarily straining towards the door.

_No. Stop it._

She folded her legs underneath her and wrapped her arms tightly around her aching abdomen.

She had been kneeling for hours last night, sometimes praying, mostly crying. Her back screamed in pain as she stood and walked shakily to the bathroom, and she whispered a silent prayer of thanks. She had exhausted her cache of medicine the night before, so the pain would have to do.

A hateful memory from a million years ago surfaced, she could almost hear her squeaks followed by his rumbles.

_'Teach me to fight.'_

_'For what?'_

_'So I can be strong._ _I wanna be like you, Riddick.'_

_'Not a good thing to be.'_

She shook her head violently to clear the voices, pinched her leg hard enough to leave a bruise, and climbed underneath the showers scalding spray.

She watched as the rich garden soil slid down her legs in muddy stream. She watched it swirl hypnotically down the drain, watched as the water pelted the tile floor. Her mind began to grow fuzzy once more; voices of a time long past, old memories bubbling to the forefront.

The soil turned red, the tile became metal. She was back on the ship.

**Flashback**

_Twelve years old, she watched the blood wash off her bruised body and into the drain. Her hands were numb from the icy downpour, but warm water stung her cuts too much. Her hands fumbled the soap and it dropped to the floor. She tried to bend, but felt the stitches on her back pull taught under their plastic bandage. Tried to squat, but stopped as the ache between her legs began to burn fiercely. She stared down at the soap, hated it, hated everything. She began to cry._

_The ice water pelting down on her nearly bald head soon gave her a headache. She shut off the water, and leaned gingerly into the cold metal wall, trying desperately to stifle the sobs the wracked her body._

_The door to the medi-bay hissed opened, and she slipped out of the shower to pull shut the shower-room door. The heavy clump of a boot against metal made her freeze. Hand on the doorknob; she peered around the doorway, beginning to shake from something stronger than the cold._

_His broad back was to her, head bent over the medi-scan readout. He seemed to eat up all the space in the room, even just standing still._

_Another kind of pain welled inside of her, more acute than the collective pain of all her injuries. He hadn't checked on her at all in the past two days. She knew he had sewn her up after she had passed out again, because the stitches were perfect. All the same size, all neat, like a machine had done it. There probably wouldn't even be a scar. She wasn't sure how she felt about that._

_But why hadn't he checked on her? She knew he was mad…because she had fucked up. Because she had lost control, had followed that guy from the videogame store into that weird party. Because he had done…things… to her. Put stuff in her that she didn't want, hurt her._

_But why wouldn't Riddick check on her? Did he hate her?_

_The thought hurt. A lot. She tried and failed to control the soft whimper._

_He didn't move, but she knew he heard her. The muscles on his back tensed, she knew he was listening. His head came up slowly; she saw his fist clench._

_"Riddick," she whispered softly, inching out of the doorway, oblivious of her nakedness._

_He turned, still not facing her, and began walking swiftly to the door. She ran after him, suddenly terrified he would disappear. Her fingers curled into his shirt, but he jerked out of her grasp._

_Flinging herself fin between him and the door, she turned on him, unmindful of the snot and tears streaming down her face. His eyes remained covered by his goggles, but she knew he was looking behind her. At the door._

_"Why won't you_ look _at me," she screamed, hands pressing against her heart, "What did I do? Riddick, please tell me! "_

_He remained silent, hands loose at his sides. Like she wasn't there. She wished he would yell at her, hit her even…just acknowledge her existence. She heard footsteps in the hallway. Imam. She locked the door behind her._

_"Please," she cried, hiccupping as sobs wracked her frame. Her voice was hoarse from crying, but she yelled anyways, "Riddick, I'm sorry! I won't fuck up anymore I promise, just please-"._

_Her pleas died off and she slumped to the floor, completely overwhelmed with tears._

_He stepped beside her, unlocked the door that Imam had been pounding on and it slid open. As Imam tripped over Jack and into the room, Riddick slipped past her into the hallway. She caught his pant leg, he stopped._

_"Please," she whispered, ignoring Imam's outraged muttering as he wrapped a blanket around her naked shoulders. "I won't fuck up anymore, Riddick, I promise. I swear. Don't do this."_

_The only indication that he heard her was the curling and uncurling of his fists, and then he tugged his leg out of her grasp and faded into the darkness of the hallway._

**End Flashback**

Audrey jerked at the sound of glass shattering.

Her eyes flew open. She was standing in the hallway, soaking wet and naked. Abu stood at the top of the stairs, two shattered mugs at his feet.

She fled, slipped on the wet wood floor and fell hard. He hurried to her side but she scrambled up from the floor, lunged into her bedroom and slammed the door.

He was behind her immediately, rapping furiously on the door.

"Jack, what happened? Are you alright? Open this door."

"Yes, I-I am just not…felling well." Her voice cracked. "Don't call me that anymore, Imam."

She heard him yelling for Fatima.

"No," she cried, "I'm- I'm alright, baba, I promise. I just…I was just…confused. Don't call Fatima. I'll be alright. I'm fine."

"No, child," he said quietly, "no you are not fine."

"I will be," she replied quickly, desperate for him to leave, "I will be. I just need some sleep."

He reluctantly relented. She heard him clean up the glass, and soon his steps began down the stairs. She collapsed to the floor, shaking uncontrollably.

Riddick's laugh, dark and cruel, reverberated through her body.

* * *

The air was heavy with static; Abu could feel the electricity rippling across his skin, the prickling of hair on his neck and arms. A summer storm was coming.

Lajjun had suggested dinner in the garden before the rains arrived, and had helped Fatima and Salam set up the tables. Abu watched as she worked herself into frenzy.

She was hiding something; but he did not have the audacity to be angry with her. Not with the secret he held in his heart.

The bundle he had discovered that morning; it had hurt him in a way that nothing else ever had. A testament to the two nights of hell she had endured while Riddick systematically destroyed the Zorian Station searching for her. She had lost the life that had resided in her; most likely alone, definitely afraid. She had never spoken of it to him, and he had never thought to ask.

God help him, but he had failed her then. As her father, as her friend. He had never felt such strong self-loathing as he did staring at those blood crusted jeans. And now...

_Allow her to walk, by her own volition, into a life of definite pain; or send her, against her will, into a fathomless darkness, with a man who has caused her immeasurable pain already. So much has been pushed on her, forced on her. Could I bear becoming one more who has robbed her of her free will? Could she? Can there be a lesser of two evils? Let one child sacrifice herself for the other. My god, this is a burden I cannot bear…_

Looking around his garden, his fortress, it amazed him, frightened him, how thin the veil of security really was. Crickets chirruped in the bushes, but on the other side of that wall lay a city festering in its own corruption. Evidence of a young girl's rape and brutalization lay buried less than two feet underneath the grass where his daughter played.

_'How much faith do you have left father_?'

Those deceitfully concerned eyes and that dark cajoling voice…

_'Father_.'

He shook his head in disgust.

Lajjun was watching him from the kitchen window and looked away almost as quickly as he did. The sun was settling into the ocean, it's radiant light catching Ziza's eye.

"Look baba," she giggled, pointing toward the sunset, "the light is going bye-bye!" She waved frantically at the retreating sun. For a second he saw her, once again, standing shoulder deep in blood.

"Will it be back tomorrow," she asked, smiling at him.

He found it impossible to breathe; blinked back tears.

_I don't know. _

"Yes, my love. Yes, it will."

Through the sliding glass door he could see Audrey begin down the staircase. She slid soundlessly past the glass door and into the softly lit garden. He watched her eyes scan the ground as she padded through the grass.

She stopped dead as her eyes met the place where the flagstone was meant to be. In its stead stood a small stone angel, cradling an infant in its arms.

Her face contorted, and for a horrifying moment he feared he had made a terrible, terrible mistake. Her eyes locked onto his and they stared for what seemed an eternity. She inhaled visibly, once, twice, struggling to find her breath.

'Thank you,' she finally mouthed, obviously fighting the tears brimming in her eyes. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and watched from the corner of his eye as she tentatively knelt down and traced the angel's wings with her fingers.

A small flame of hope sparked in his heart. The clock inside struck seven.

_Twenty-five hours left. My god._

Audrey's eyes caught his in the fading light. She lowered her head. The flame flickered and went out.


	8. Palaces and Princesses

**New Meccan Embassy, Helion Prime**

Private Adric held his radio up to his mouth. "All clear."

Turning to Audrey, he motioned for her to join him in the room. She hesitated in the doorway, wishing she had the ability to melt into the carpet. To disappear, cease existing.

"Miss al-Walid. Audrey. There's nothing to be afraid of."

She started, looked up at him incredulously. She wished her throat would work, so she could tell him how wrong he was. That there was _everything_ to be afraid of. Instead she threw her suitcase onto the bed and sat down next to it.

Adric, she supposed, was her body guard for the time being. He'd picked her up from Abu's estate in a government issued car. Talked to her on the ride to the Embassy. Explained to her the procedures of the next few days. He even held her when she broke into inconsolable tears, and then was kind enough to ignore her as she awkwardly tried to pull herself back together before they entered the Embassy gates.

Now he was kneeling in front of her, pale blue eyes crinkled in a kind smile. "Listen, I'll be right outside this door. " He moved away, towards the door. "Dinner will be up at eighteen hundred. That's six o'clock."

Audrey felt herself nod. "Okay."

Adric made to close the door, but she propelled herself after him, stopping when he turned back to face her. Ashamedly, she looked at the ground, hating herself for allowing the outburst.

"Would you…would you stay? I don't want to eat alone."

Silence, and then a tired sigh. He moved past her, dropped very unmilitary- like into a recliner and watched her closely. "Sure, kid. I'll eat dinner with you. It's the fucking least I can do."

* * *

Two hours later, she was eternally grateful to this man. He talked the entire time.

She was seated at the window, overlooking the Embassy grounds, halfway listening to the private's story. He had the wanderlust, and it made her hurt. Flashes of the New Johannesburg station, when traveling the universe was possible and monsters only existed in the books they read you at the orphanages.

"What happened to the Caliph's first wife," she asked, turning to look at him. He started at the sound of her voice; she'd been quiet for hours. She continued, "He has children, right? Sons?"

"Twin boys. She died in childbirth, I was just a kid, but it was all over the news."

He squirmed in his seat, licked his lips. "You look a lot like her, you know."

Audrey blinked, looked at him closer. "Excuse me?"

At that moment, the radio on Adric's belt squawked out a jumbled order, and he jumped to his feet.

"That'd be the Commander," he said, obviously relieved at the conversation's derailment. "Gotta run."

Somewhat stricken, she turned back to the window. She'd be alone with her thoughts. Never good.

_Two days. Two days, and I'll be off Prime and it won't hurt so much. _

Adric hovered behind her, she watched his reflection fiddle with the radio."Off the record?"

She looked over her shoulder, nodded once. _Who am I going to tell?_

"You're a smart girl," he said, picking his plate up off the bed, "I think you understand the way things are. The way they work here. Chrislam is the law; the Caliph is the fucking sheriff. I won't tell you not to be afraid, you should be. The trick is not to show it."

"I'm not afraid," she replied turning back to the window. "I'm not anything. I don't think I ever was."

His reflection nodded curtly, brushed imaginary lint from his pristine uniform, "Maybe that's best. "

* * *

The guard was dying, maybe already dead. She was tacky with his blood, her blood, fresh tears, another man's drying sweat.

_He was trying to save me._

The mattress dipped, squeaked and she tensed to the point of pain. The blankets rustled, deafeningly loud in the pressing darkness of the silent room. She felt the trickling pull of blood leaving her body as the man beside her fixed his lips to the congealing bite mark above her breast and suckled. She considered the phone on the bedside table, its cord a perfect length. He couldn't see her reaching in the dark, she didn't think.

The guard drew in a rattling breath, reminded her of the small but efficient dagger hidden in her tormentor's clothes. The phone seemed miles away.

His fingers on her throat were gentle though, stroking slow before moving on to knead her shoulders. The other hand traced the bruises his hipbones had left on her thighs, it hurt a little. Not enough to overpower the perverse anticipation she felt as his fingers inched inwards.

_Maybe this is how it's supposed to be._ The thought shook her, perhaps more than the blistering sensation of him thrusting into her.

He slid a pillow over her face, holding it gently. She tried to turn her head and the pressure increased tenfold.

_No, not like this. _

She panicked, pushing blindly at his face and torso as his thrusts increased. The weight of his hand fell directly over her face and she thrashed wildly. Lungs burning for air, she began slipping into a permanent darkness.

_I'm going to die. Right here. Underneath him._

The cool air hit her face like a slap, and she sucked air in greedily. His hips twitched against hers and then he was gone. She scrunched down into the covers and refused to breathe until she heard footsteps headed towards the door. A gurgling sound from the floor made her heart jerk painfully against her chest.

The guard was alive, and it sounded like he was trying to speak under water.

_Not water. Blood. _

She dissected it clinically, disjointedly.

_Puncture wound to the chest. His lungs are filling up with blood. He's suffocating. Because he came back for me. Because he heard me screaming. _

Rolling slowly to her side, she peered into the dark. Heard a squishing sound and knew it was Ibrahim's foot sinking into the blood soaked carpet around the young man.

_He should have walked away. He didn't even know me. _The surrealism of the entire night was quickly fading.

It wasn't a dream. The monster was real. He was really her husband. And that man on the floor had tried at the last minute to save her…and now he was _really_ dying.

The door cracked open, she saw his silhouette beckoning a guard. Another young soldier sidled through the door, pitiful in his combat fatigues. The hall light fell onto the bed; he looked at her, at the stained sheets, and looked away. The dim light stung her swollen eyes, but she did not miss the color draining from the soldier's face when Ibrahim motioned to the guard on the floor.

He swallowed visibly, averted his eyes.

_He was your friend_, she thought.

Ibrahim smoothed one hand down the soldiers face, soothingly. "It will be him or you both, my son. Choose wisely." He stepped over the body without a backwards glance and was gone.

The soldier now stood in the doorway, staring at Audrey with undiluted hatred. He unsheathed his knife and she recoiled back into the blankets, reaching wildly for a weapon she knew wasn't there.

He bent quickly, hand moving in a blurred arc across his comrade's throat. The weak spray of blood illuminated briefly in the hall light. Small gurgling sounds, then silence. She had the fleeting desire to tell him something comforting - that he was sparing his friend a drawn out death, perhaps- but as his eyes settled on her once more she was distinctly certain that if she opened her mouth, he would kill her for sure. The young man nodded once, as if to confirm her silent suspicions, cleaned his blade on the carpet and walked shakily from the room, leaving her in complete darkness.

She rolled back over, pressing her face into the mattress so the tears couldn't fall.


	9. Deliver Us

**Helion Prime, New Mecca**

Dried dates had always been a favorite treat. She'd eat them, the whole container, one at a time. Wash down the sugary mush with sips of cold milk. Riddick had bought her a box of dates once; after she made him bleed for the first time. She only ate one a day, back then. It was the only present he had ever bought her, and they were the best things she had ever tasted.

But that was nothing but a fever dream now. Life with Riddick was just an irregular blip in an otherwise uneventful cycle of REM sleep. And the date she'd shared at the end of the wedding ceremony had the sickly sweet and slightly acrid after taste of vomit.

* * *

They'd be leaving in the morning, her and her husband and his soldiers. To her new home, she supposed. Or her prison, either way it didn't matter. She was already on her way to becoming somebody, something else. But for now, she supposed she was satisfied with just floating somewhere in the grey.

She pressed her face against the window and watched the rain splatter against the grounds below. She remembered vaguely, that she used to like summer storms. The warm rain, the smell of wet dirt.

There was sharp knock on the door and she turned towards it dully, "Come in."

Adric stepped through the door, closed it behind him and smiled thinly. "Madam," he bowed.

Without responding she curled into a recliner and stared at him. His fingers played with the radio, she heard it click. "You leave tomorrow, kid. I suggest you pull it together."

"What do you think I'm doing, Private Adric," she asked quietly, swiveling the chair around to face the window again.

The rain made his reflection waver and dance in the window. "You're falling apart. I saw your face at the ceremony this morning, you looked like death. Like it or not, this is your life now. You can't run from that fact."

Audrey froze, fingers digging into the recliner arms.

_I didn't run. I'm fighting. _And then, _I'm losing._

Her lips pressed thin, white with fury. "Get out."

Behind her, Adric nodded turned his radio back on and faced the door, "Your transport arrives at oh eight hundred. Be up by seven." He was gone, and she sank back into the recliner shaking.

She caught her reflection in the window and stared.

She was flushed, bright patches of pink standing out on her neck. Her hands shook, but not from fear. Finally, not from fear. Fresh, hot anger. She had almost cursed at him, almost told him to get the _fuck _out. She hadn't felt that good in years.

* * *

She was in the shower when the lights flickered, then died. She froze, listening , then shut off the water.

Stepping silently from the shower she wrapped herself in a fluffy towel, "Lights."

Nothing. A little louder she called, "Lights on." No lights.

She slipped into the main room, and paused as her mind tried to comprehend what she was seeing.

Glass was strewn across the floor, glittering with the pulsating red glow of the emergency lights. Emergency lights and blood. She tripped over the body trying to get to the phone, it was dead.

_Of course it would be_, something mocked in her head.

Clutching her towel tight she turned to the man on the floor. It was Adric, his kind blue eyes were wide open, and he too was most definitely dead. She dropped beside him whispering to herself, "No. No, no, no." Her hands fell to his chest, felt the handle protruding, she jerked back as if burned. Looking closer in the strobing light she could see it clearly.

The inlay, the grooves. She slapped her hand over her mouth, retching. She knew that knife.

Something ugly was working its way through her body, telling her that this was wrong, wrong, wrong. The broken window, the absence of guards, the familiar handle.

Her body, her mind screamed 'run'. She did, holding the towel around her she gave one last look to Adric and stumbled out of the room and into the hallway, into blackness.

Completely blind, listening to the staccato bursts of gunfire from the grounds below, she felt her way down the hall. Her hands, outstretched hit something impossibly warm, impossibly hard. Before she could scream she was hefted up over a shoulder and carted off down the hall and into the stairwell.

Ineffectively, she tried to dislodge herself from the man's shoulder, twisting and kicking. The grip around her legs increased until she cried out, and the man continued to ascend the stairs.

Something below them exploded, rocking the entire foundation of the building. She felt scorching air start to blister her skin, but as her captor rounded a corner, her head connected with a wall and she knew no more.


	10. City On A Hill

**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

"...not clear as to the condition of…"

"Minimize media exposure…"

"…fire has been contained in the southeast quadrant of the Embassy…"

Abu drifted in and out of the conversations going on around him. The room was vibrating, pulsing with energy, and it was giving him a splitting headache.

He'd been awakened in the middle of the night by a unit of soldiers breaking down his front door. His immediate anger and confusion had turned into horrified realization when Lajjun had whispered in his ear, "She is safe. Deny everything."

Now, his eyes fixed upon the surveillance shots pinned to a board in the back of the room.

Riddick, materializing from the shadow behind some oblivious soldier. Snapping his neck. Planting a package.

Riddick, eyes glowing in the infrared light. Head tilting towards the camera, smirking.

Riddick, standing in the dark hallway waiting for Audrey, watching her stumble towards him.

Abu shuddered and moved away, towards the center of the conference room.

Two men sat at one end of the room's one table, both in uniform, both murmuring furiously. They were hunched over stacks of files; Abu felt in his soul they were Riddick's records. Maybe Jacqueline's too, for all he knew. He'd convinced them of his ignorance, but they'd connected the dots between Riddick and Jack alarmingly fast.

"We've shut down the spaceport," one explained, drawing his finger across a map, "and implemented road blocks along all the major routes. He's not getting out of this city. Not alive."

Abu collapsed into a seat next to them, considered telling them they knew nothing but what Riddick allowed them to.

But that would shatter his cover.

Abu let his eyes wander up the table, past the soldiers, past the Minister's and Council members. Ibrahim sat silently, simmering, fingers drumming on the table.

News blared from the television in the corner of the room. "A bounty has been reissued for convicted murderer Richard B. Riddick, in the amount of eight million universal credits-"

Abu wilted in his seat, jaw going slack. _My god. Every hunter in the quadrant…down on his head. On hers. _

* * *

She awoke on a sandy floor, grit in her eyes and mouth. She tried to stand but the dull ache in her head skyrocketed and she collapsed back onto the blanket she had been laying on, gasping in pain. She drifted in and out of consciousness for hours, days, she didn't know. When she woke, there was a bottle of water and some soup still in its can beside her. She inhaled both, scooping the cold soup into her mouth with dirty fingers.

Standing, she wrapped the blanket around her torso and took a few tentative steps towards the only source of light. The window was filthy, crusted with dirt almost entirely blocking out the sunlight.

She looked out, down, and was overwhelmed with vertigo. Shaking she pushed away from the window and huddled down against the wall.

Looking around she located the pipes, the speaker that would broadcast the adhan to the entire city.

_The minaret al-Nur…_

There was a knock from beside her and whirling around she saw a woman slip through a door that she hadn't seen.

"Lajjun."

Audrey's feet sent the empty water bottle skidding across the floor and into the shadows in her rush. She collided with Lajjun, clung onto the woman's clothes. Lajjun, in return kissed her forehead, smoothed her hair down her back, held her as she shook.

"Are you hurt, child," she asked quietly.

Audrey, still wrapped around the woman, shook her head. "What's going on?"

Tutting, Lajjun held her back at arms length, "Why are you not dressed? Where are your clothes?"

Audrey blinked, pulled back. "My clothes? Lajjun what's-"

The water bottle rolled slowly back into the light, coming to a stop at her toes. She stared at it, trying to understand why that wasn't right. She was knocked to the floor, breath whooshing out, before she could.

The older woman was jerked violently back into the dark, and a thick arm, a man's arm snaked out around her throat.

Audrey sat back up; her fingers curling around the soup can. Lajjun's eyes swiveled to the can, she lifted an eyebrow and Audrey let it roll from her fingers.

Tendons twitched in Lajjun's neck as she fought to keep her composure, harsh metallic blue glinting against her mahogany skin.

Lajjun licked her lips, closed her eyes. "Mr. Riddick, I presume."

Audrey could not process the response, only the sound of his voice rolling out of the shadows like a cloud. She closed her eyes, breathed, and opened them again. He was crouching in front of her, melting in and out of shadow. She stared stupidly, reaching out to touch his face, resolute in her belief that he would waft away and she would wake up at home.

His stubble was rough against her palm. There was the perversely gratifying sting of a needle in her arm, and then nothing but more blissful warmth and darkness.

* * *

Lajjun watched him gracefully lower the girl's body. He was gentle, almost reverent.

And then he stood, regally, seeming to absorb the light itself. Her eyes flicked to the needle in his hand.

"Was that necessary?"

He glanced back down to the girl, shrugged, "She'll live."

Lajjun nodded, shaken, and made her way over to a crate, trying not to completely collapse onto it. When she glanced back up he was across the room, leaning against the widow frame, studying her.

"I don't have much time," she said warily, "I have half now. You will receive the rest when she is returned to us. Alive."

He shrugged again. "And if she isn't?"

Lajjun stumbled over her words, "You-you said-."

He grinned maliciously, tilted his head. "I said what?"

"You'd see to her safety-."

The grin disappeared, his face grew dark. "I'll keep Jack safe."

She tried to swallow. When he held out his hand, she flinched, reaching hastily into her robes. The felt the air shift, then the cold sting of steel against her throat, again. Slowly, she withdrew her hand, dropped the credit chips on the floor and the blade disappeared.

He plucked the chips up, moved back to his space, read the amounts on them. "That bad, huh?" He snorted, threw the chips into a pack. "Where's the Imam?"

"Dealing with the authorities, I assume. He needed to be uninvol-."

Static from the speakers cut her short, and the muezzin's voice began to pour into the room, surrounding them, shaking dust from the high rafters.

Riddick moved to the window, looked down on the crowd below. The fading sunlight played shadows along his copper skin, highlighting the scars that flecked his arms. Broad shoulders, defined arms. Rugged hands with long fingers, like an artist. He was beautiful, ethereal and terrifying, brooding over the praying crowds. Like some god-king in a tower, on a hill.

The call ended, she prayed quickly. For her. Her husband, their daughter. For Audrey, if she had been wrong about Riddick, about his intentions.

When she her eyes again he was still in the window, lip curled in disdain.

"They're giving thanks," she whispered vacantly, eyes wandering now over the bruises on Audrey's prone form.

The dull chopping of helicopter blades vibrated through the room and Riddick stepped back from the window laughing, "What the fuck for? This city's gone to shit."

"This is a magnificent city," she argued. _It was. It could be again. _

His lips twisted into a derisive smirk. He pushed up the dark lenses he wore, eyes glinting like mirrors.

She shrunk back, _Windows to the soul..._

"You're paying a convict to save a girl from a holy man. I'd cut fence."

"The men of the Asharal line are the only leaders this faith has ever recognized," she replied briskly. "Ibrahim has corrupted that, perverted it. The people would fight, I'm sure, if they had a goal to fight for. But abandoning their homeland, the land of their faith, is not an option."

"Always a choice." He turned back to the dirty window, back to the kneeling masses. "These people just keep making the wrong ones."

"I would think you of all people would know that life does not offer everyone a choice." She stood, pulled her cloak over her head. The collective hum of the worshippers below was fading and she was counting on being able to blend into the crowd.

She dropped beside Audrey once more, kissed her head and walked quickly to the door.

Something niggled in the back of her mind. She turned, almost screamed when her nose brushed up against his chest.

He stared down at her, face completely unreadable.

Unnerved by his closeness, she backed out of the door, "You should know; she has a warrior's heart. She couldn't have discovered that here. She would never have had the chance. Keep her safe...please."

Behind him Audrey begin to stir. Lajjun looked to him, eyes searching. He swung the door shut.

When she emerged from the stairwell, the streets were dark. She slipped out into the crowd, eyes alert, taking in everything. Search lights from the helicopters, the ruins of a once beautiful city, the soldiers threaded throughout the crowd. Felt the surging electricity in the air, the pressing humidity. Looking up could see his outline, faintly, watching her through the layers of dust. As she watched he slid back, melded with the dark.


	11. Twilight Kingdom

**A big 'thank you' to all reviewers. :)**

* * *

**Fringes of the Helion System**

She woke abruptly . Completely pinned between a metal table and a glass slide, like an insect. Totally naked and unbelievably cold. There was a loud hum from above her, the red flash of a laser, and a quiet hiss. The slide lifted, released her, and she rolled over gingerly, stiff and aching.

Her head pulsed with every heart beat, vision blurred around the edges. She made out the glare of fluorescent lights, beeps of machinery, whir of air purifiers.

She pushed herself up, arms shaking. She glanced around, trying to reason with the growing discomfort.

The room was sterile, almost uncomfortably so, it had to be military. But it was so familiar.

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, she breaths puffed out in front of her. She slid awkwardly off the table, and walked unsteadily to what she assumed was the exit.

She called for the door to open, tried to slide it, push it, and finally beat on it. Nothing happened. Her teeth begin to chatter, she rubbed her arms furiously.

There was a smaller, closet sized door across the room, and out of a mix of desperation and curiosity she hobbled over to it. A washbasin, pullout toilet, and small shower stall. Her unease shifted into a burning anxiety in her gut, but she had to pee and the temptation of hot water trumped all thoughts.

She waited until steam was billowing from the stall before jumping in. The water prickled and burned but she groaned in appreciation, and sunk down against the warm metal wall to defrost.

She was trying to remember where she was and how she got there when a noise drew her out the shower. She crept towards the door.

The smell hit her first, a stark contrast to the odorless room. Sweat and leather and hand chalk.

And then he was there, leaning against the bed she'd been on, flipping through some charts.

_This isn't right. He was facing away from me and-_

She saw a glimmer behind the goggles. "Towels're in the same place, Jack."

She jumped at his voice, blinking in confusion. "But-."

_But this-_

"This isn't a dream." She sagged against the wall, suddenly exhausted, devastatingly empty.

It's wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream or a memory and Adric, her friend, was dead. And _he _was here, very much alive, very real. And she remembered everything. All of it. All over again.

He smirked a little and all of a sudden she was twelve years old again, "Welcome home."

* * *

Tracker scan had come back clean, she wasn't bugged. But she didn't smell right. Blood smelled toxic, stank of fear and death and that made him pause. Put him in a cloud of something ugly and black.

She'd been doped up, and not with what he'd given her either. The puncture wounds were encircled in little contusions, framed in long scratches. Inside her thighs, underneath her breasts. Places that no one would ever see on an Imam's daughter. Made sense.

Couldn't help but notice that he and hubby had some common interests, but his bite wouldn't have been so deep and sloppy. That would take a graft to heal right. Some motherfuckers had no common sense.

He put her back to sleep because she wouldn't stop crying, wouldn't stop cringing away from him. Wouldn't even take the fucking drink he brought her. Even after she'd puked herself dry.

Stupid kid. She'd be begging for those electrolytes when the muscle spasms set in.

Never put your body at a disadvantage. Didn't she remember that? Obviously not, but she'd learn.

She'd have no choice. Couldn't have her fear clogging up his head, it made him want to ravage. Who knew how long they'd be in the Black alone?

Wasn't expecting to see the girl again. Wasn't safe. Not after what she made him do on that station…

**Flashback**

_She'd finally managed to slip the chains. They'd been working on that for weeks. She'd been excited enough to hug him, didn't even blush when he stared her down._

_She liked the dates, thanked him daily, so he palmed a bottle on his way out of the marketplace. Carbonated, smelled like liquid sugar and fruit, something she'd like._

_The look on the holy man's face stopped him cold. And then, "She's gone."_

_He felt the crunch of glass in his hand, pineapple soda and blood dripped onto the metal ramp. _

_The first two stores went up like matches; in the third he found her scent. Ended up outside some house, listening to music dying down, watching people stumble into the street. He slipped into the door, locked it. No one else left. _

_Found her shoe in the alley outside the apartment, laces torn, 'J.B.B' written on the side. Picking it up he saw the drops of blood. Pushed his way into the dingy room, the walls were saturated with her fear, he choked on it. _

_Felt a brief vibrating hum, then a delicate snap in the back of his brain. The next few hours came in fragments of sensation. Metal scraping bone. Knuckles dislodging teeth. Fingers digging into tracheal rings. _

_Underneath him, the man's head had spread across the tile and he vaguely felt his finger fracture with the last blow. _

_Then she was curled in his arms, half dead. And he was collapsed against the alley wall, feeling her blood burn a trail down his stomach, trying not to scream._


	12. Fever Dreams

_She was running from nothingness. A dark, roaring void trying to consume her. She wanted to run so badly it hurt, but she was made of lead, running through sand. The roaring grew louder. She ran harder, struggled up the rolling, endless dunes. Away from the void. She stumbled, dropped and rolled down the mound. She squeezed her eyes shut waiting to be sucked into the darkness, but it never came. _

_She peeked through her lashes, found herself in a barren field. The ground was charred, everything dead. _

"_Hey, kid." _

_She whirled towards the voice, uncoordinated and heavy. _

_It was her a million lifetimes ago, almost. Pixie short hair, pale from months in space, the devil in her smile. But then she was also older, harder, stronger. _

"_What-who," Audrey spluttered. And then, lamely, "I was running."_

_The younger-older version of herself tossed back her head and laughed loudly. "No shit." She sobered a little, but still chuckling said, "All in good time, kiddo. We have a while."_

_Audrey flushed, confused. "Who are you?"_

"_You," the girl-woman replied pleasantly, "and then some. I'd say 'you, but better', personally, but I'm probably biased. And besides, he won't admit it, but he always did have a thing for that 'damsel in distress' bullshit."_

"_You're not me," Audrey whimpered, stepping back awkwardly. "This is insane."_

_"Insane." Her double said the word slowly, deliberately, like she was tasting the word. Then she laughed again, "It's all relative. And hell no, I'm not __**just**__ you. They'd have launched the thousand ships for __**me**__. " She sighed, clicked her fingers and a thunderous explosion rocked the ground. Her smile was now terrifying. _

_The void was back, circling down from above, eating the sky. Audrey tried and failed to move, "Help me!"_

_The girl bent down, plucked something from the blackened ground. "Oh, I am." _

_She extended her hand, uncurled it, revealed a shockingly green blade of grass. "Think of it as slash and burn."_

_The emptiness funneled down, kissed the ground, sucking in everything. Audrey choked on a scream and there was nothing but blackness._

And then there was light. Light and metal and the smell of disinfectant. She registered a moment of warm tranquility. And then her body began to spasm, stomach twisting and caving in on itself. She rolled over, pressed her face into the starched sheets and let the pain come.

* * *

He was out of bed and in the hallway before it dawned on him. Withdrawal. Seen it a million times in slam, but knowing it was her made him angry. He leaned into the wall, listening to her wails.

It'd hurt like a bitch, but she'd live.

He returned to his bed, let the door hiss shut behind him. Her voice rang through the ventilation system, "Riddick!"

_Interesting_. She'd been trying to climb through the wall to get away from him earlier.

She called him again, faintly, voice breaking, and he came. Stood outside the medi-bay door, listening, waiting. There was a painful heaving sound then, more persistent, "Riddick!" He hit the access pad.

She was shivering, sweating, retching and moaning all at once. He paused at the doorway, somewhere between anger and disgust. She was sweating poison and it reeked. _Goddamn_. Only hard vacuum would get rid of that smell.

"Please," she croaked, "I know – I know you're there."

He came up to the bed, watched her eyes roll around in the dark. A violent spasm hit her and then, "Oh god, make it stop. Please." He called for low lights, helped her sit up and sip water in between spasms. It'd help with the dehydration. She'd have to ride out the pain on her own.

She struggled feebly as he peeled off the drenched t-shirt, lapsed back into a semi-conscious delirium.

Riddick made a mental note that at some point the girl was going to need clothes of her own. He couldn't wash the stink of fear out of the ones he lent her.

That would be later. For now, she'd have to sweat out whatever the fuck was in her system. And then...he'd have to see. Something had changed.

She'd been terrified before. And now, well she'd called for him. When pain had stripped everything else away, she had remembered his name.

* * *

MMM, a little short, yes? No worries, more to come. I like to break it up.


	13. Secret Keepers

**(A/N: Thanks to ****Saismaat**** for the feedback and suggestions.)**

**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

When the phone rang he knew that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Her voice on the other end confirmed.

"Abu, I have been detained for questioning."

Ziza knocked on his study window, pressed her nose against the glass smiling broadly.

He failed to keep his voice from cracking, "Are you alright?"

She paused for a beat too long and then, "Yes. Please send a car..."

Ziza knocked again, more persistent, curious as to why her father wasn't participating in their game. Salam appeared behind her, cooed something, and led her away.

Abu had a sudden irrational flare of fear and anger. Someone was taking her away from him, out of his sight. He heard her laugher floating across the backyard, knew she was safe, and began to breathe again.

"Abu? Are you there?" He jumped, looked at the phone. _Lajjun, of course_.

"Yes. A car. Of course," he said mechanically. "Of course."

He hung up, pushed away from his desk, winced as a picture of Audrey clattered to the ground. The glass spider nictitated, shot webs that obscured everything but her eyes. He nicked a finger on the shards as he grabbed the frame; a drop of blood seeped through the tiny fissures and tinged her smile red.

* * *

The silence was absolute. Uninterrupted save for the clinking of forks against plates.

She watched his face. He watched his plate. Three days and he still hadn't told her why she was here. Hadn't told her anything.

Left her in the silence, alone with strange thoughts and violent memories. Memories of training with him, laughing, crying. Of killing for him, dying for him.

Thoughts came in bursts; short fits of crystal clear purpose, periods of absolute uncertainty.

But she was relatively sure he wasn't going to kill her.

_Better dead than crazy. _

"God, Riddick why am I here? What do you want?"

She knew she sounded upset. _Where else to do I have to be? Underneath Ibrahim. Locked in some palace._

"Because you need to be."

She started at the sound of his voice, realized that she hadn't actually expected an answer.

"But why?" She stopped, considering. "You think I told, don't you?"

He barked out a laugh that stunned her into silence. He looked surprised himself, and began collecting plates, making it clear she'd been dismissed.

The abrupt anger scared her. It felt incongruously freeing. "What the hell do you want from me?"

He turned on her, and she was suddenly very, very small. She watched, mesmerized, as a delicate curved blade materialized in his hands. Watched him twirl it thoughtfully around scar flecked fingers. He extended his hand, offering the knife. She recoiled slightly, sitting up and drawing her knees close.

"Remember how to use one of these," he asked quietly, hand still extended.

"In another life," she said guardedly, eyes focusing determinedly on the wall above his head.

He withdrew his arm. "A life you wanted."

Her chair clattered to the floor as she stood abruptly. Words flew from her mouth, unchecked.

She felt the air shift, and knew nothing else.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000

He'd pulled the punch, at the last minute, when he'd remembered who she was. But he had to leave the room. Before he really hurt her. She'd be down for a while and he needed to rein it in.

He'd been second guessing himself, something that rarely happened, about what to do with her. Taking her back to the holy man wasn't even an option. An eight million cred bounty made that clear. It wasn't even about her anymore. Hubby'd probably just kill her; compromised honor and all that shit.

She was terrified of cryo. He wondered when that had started to matter.

_Fuck this_. He wasn't dropping her off, and he didn't have to explain it. Wasn't up to her either way.

He situated himself at the control panel, began moving accounts, cleaning up his trail. Seven years of relative isolation and people still remembered.

Work usually cleared his mind. But the girl kept creeping back in and he found himself hacking the Helios Academy database, accessing her files.

_Smart girl. Coulda gone places. _And then, after a moment's consideration: _Still can_.

He heard her begin to shuffle around the ship, heading back towards the medi-bay. Wondered if she was going to cry, and if he cared either way.

He'd let her rest, or cry, or whatever the fuck she needed to do for an hour. And then he'd come for her.

* * *

**New Mecca, Helion Prime**

Her small cool hand on his shoulder was a pleasant contrast to the scalding water. He leaned back into her, let her wrap her small arms around his waist.

He loved his wife, more than he'd believed possible. The daughter she'd given; the daughter she'd accepted. She was a light in the dark unforgivable world that had once been his home.

She flourished under the Council's surveillance; maintained their home when Fatima and Salam had involuntarily resigned, also the Council's doing.

When she murmured, "She is safe, my love," into his ear he believed her; and when she led him by the hand into their bed, he did not protest. He found his solace in her body, in her quiet pleas. Afterwards, he held her and wept until sleep pulled him under.

_Audrey was anything but safe. She was sitting in front of him, not quite dead, definitely not alive. Decaying rapidly. He watched as something underneath her skin took on an almost human form. Her face fragmented, bleeding through the cracks. She looked at him amused, "Hullo daddy"._

He jolted awake, swallowing a scream. He sat in the dark, listening to the quiet noises associated with an old house. Lajjun was dozing peacefully, wrapped in the entirety of the comforter. He touched her arm lightly, halfway hoping she'd wake up and distract him from replaying his dream. She didn't.

He walked to the bathroom, stumbling over their discarded towels. His glasses were on the sink and when he put them on he glanced around the elaborate room. The marble counters and tub. The gold-leafed ceiling and ornate towel holders.

_This entire house is a prison. _

The Council had tapped their phones, seized his computer for evidence. Desecrated their home.

There had not been one unguarded conversation between him and his wife since she'd been called in for questioning.

_Except…_

"_She's safe, my love. Riddick gave me his word that he would see to her safety. He has been paid well; he has no reason to harm her."_

He frowned, remembering her whispered reassurance.

"Shower on."

_Of course…_

The hiss of the water was loud enough to obscure any conversation.

She picked that time specifically to come to him, to talk to him. She'd planned it, without his knowledge. Just like she'd planned Jack's kidnapping.

He stared unseeingly at the running water until the preset timer turned it off; and then he climbed back into and watched her sleep for the rest of the night.

* * *


	14. Exiting

* * *

She lived her life within the soft glow of the bedside light. Reading, praying, thinking.

Everything beyond that was cause and effect.

He called, she came.

He cooked, she ate.

He swung, she ducked.

Except when she didn't and ended up in on the floor, stunned, breathless and in pain. And still he never relented.

But there were times when she landed a successful blow and was twelve again; enjoying the closeness of his body, laughing when he missed and cursing when he didn't.

Until the spar was over and the silence was uncomfortable, pressing, absolute. And then he was less of a friend and more of a captor.

It always ended with him looming above her, breathing hard, chest not quite touching hers. Sometimes she'd turn her head, stare hard at the wall, pretend he wasn't there. Other times she'd close her eyes and just allow him to be close, let his breath ruffle her hair, and his body heat warm her face and arms. It was nice.

Three weeks in, she noticed a change, an up in his brutality.

He was on her the second she'd stepped into the dojo. She was able to duck, collect herself and move to a more defensive position. But there was no denying him, no escaping his blows.

She dodged, weaved, eluded until she miscalculated and he hit her hard enough to make stars explode in her head. She went sprawling. Stayed on the floor watching the blood drip from her nose and puddle on the mat.

"Get up." He was behind her, demanding, impatient. Angry.

"Thought we were pulling punches. Asshole."

He remained silent, radiating anger from his position in the corner.

She pushed to her feet, loped to the door. "I don't know what's wrong with you. And I don't care. I'm going."

"Gym, lock down."

She retracted her hand before the gym door slammed shut. Could feel the blood trickling down her shirt_, _his eyes heavy between her shoulder blades.

Words wouldn't come so she closed her eyes, waiting for the blow. Waiting for pain and then the blood and then the darkness.

_He's going to kill me. After all this. He's still going to kill me. _

She felt betrayed.

_Don't be stupid. He's not on my side. I don't even have a side. _

His hand settling on the access pad on the wall beside her startled her out of her thoughts. His eyes caught hers and for a second her feelings of betrayal were written all over his face. He almost looked sorry.

_What the hell?_

And then he was Riddick again, something incomprehensible, unreachable.

He slipped into the darkness of the hallway.

She allowed herself two minutes of consideration, and then set off after him.

He was at the bridge, in the chair that seemed to have always belonged to him.

"Get out of here."

Her body responded to his command, jerked as if to hasten away.

_No, godammit. _

"What's the issue, Riddick? I want to know if I'm going to have to worry about you killing me in my sleep tonight."

It was silent forever. She waited for him to spring up, to be the monster that she knew he was, kill her, cut her, end her.

Instead he swung around in his chair, dropped the tele-reader he'd been holding at her feet and brushed past her, knocking her against the bridge's railing.

She waited a full three minutes, until she was sure he had gone, before picking up the reader . Bending over put her at a disadvantage if he decided to attack.

The thought made her snort, and then giggle, and then laugh until her lungs ached.

Sitting, standing, sleeping. It didn't matter. When he got tired of her, he'd kill her. She was living on his whim.

That stopped the laughter. She settled into his chair. Felt the leather, worn from use, warm from his skin. Felt distinctly out of place, got up and moved to the co-pilot's chair.

It felt like home.

The reader's screen brightened at her touch. A Helion tabloid.

_God, is that how I looked?_

A cow-eyed girl, a wraith of a girl stared up from the reader. Next to her was the compulsory deadpan mugshot of Riddick. The headline read, 'The Devil's Bride'.

She chuckled humorlessly at the reporter's accuracy.

And then pictures of Abu and Lajjun. A dull aching throb started between her eyes and in her chest. She wondered if Abu even knew, how worried he must be.

She scrolled down further, jerked, and the reader fell from her fingers.

A face, old and wrinkled and impossibly familiar stared up blindly from the screen.

_It was cold when she woke up. A hard, biting cold that made her shudder underneath the itchy wool blankets. It was a long moment before she could focus in the dim light. _

_The children were on the far side of the hut, stacked almost like firewood against each other. _

_There was cold gruel congealing in the bowl by her cot, she scooped it into her mouth. It made her stomach burn. Her whole body burned. _

_The old woman muttered in her sleep, rolled over, shivering. Jack stood, draped her blanket around the woman. Spotted her clothes in the corner and dressed quickly. _

_Grey cargoes had the rusty brown stain of blood up and down the legs. Old lady must've tried to wash them. They were freezing as she pulled them on, not bothering to fasten buttons. The hem of her sweater was the same. It didn't matter. _

_At the door there was a basket, surrounded by flowers, under a fine white lace. Jack tore the basket open and gently picked up the bundle inside. _

_The streets were dark and cold and empty save for a few stray mutts. Her feet beat against the pavement, tears drying on her face as she ran. _

_Gradually the city thinned out and she was running through the fields. Her foot hit a rock and she went sprawling, bundle flying from her arms. She hit cold dirt and slid. She lay there until the call of birds roused her. _

_She had to get home. _

_She picked up the bundle again and the cloth fell open. __A tiny hand, what could've been a leg. Jack wrapped it up secure, cradled it close to her chest and walked._

_Early morning workers silently watched as she walked alone, unthinking, unfeeling down the middle of the road. She made it to the hills and continued on mechanically. _

_The gate was easy enough to scale. And the dirt in the garden was soft and moist. She stripped, dropped her clothes in the hole, lowered in the bundle. Covered it with the heaviest piece of flagstone she could find. _

_Cargoes, boots, and knives. Things she'd collected, cherished, loved. All into the incinerator. She watched them burn, and started anew. _

_No Jack. No running. No Riddick. _

_Control was all she needed. Pain would be her reminder. _

_She showered, scrubbed, erased herself. _

_She made Abu breakfast, managed to grin at his surprised smile. _

_Sat down across from him, "Morning…baba."_

The reader beeped in her lap. Dead battery. She let it shut itself down.

That morning was crystal clear, etched into her mind like a vid scene. Something for someone else's life.

She couldn't summon the will to cry.

Absentmindedly fingered the frayed harnesses of her chair, ran her hands along the armrests.

_Feels like home. _

She'd almost forgotten the pressing black of deep space. How much she loved it, appreciated it.

And how much she had used to like the idea that she and Riddick and Abu were their own civilization. Their own world within a tin-can space ship.

_How fucking stupid could I have been?_

From her seat she could see some far off system cutting through the absolute nothingness like a gaping, glittering wound.

* * *

**Ah, winter break. Time to tend to my much neglected stories. I thank you all for all the feedback. **


	15. Underlie

If anything, knocking her around made it worse. It had taken longer than usual to bring himself out of the ugly red haze. Recognized that it had everything to do with her.

He'd been sifting through the Helion news out of boredom more than anything else. Found a heading that caught his eye. It had been amusing enough to deserve a read.

That feeling had faded quickly.

Some old woman, dragged up from some shit-hole alley, talking about Jack. About finding a bloody little girl outside of her hut. And a baby.

His mind shut down at that. He went after her on auto-pilot.

Couldn't find a reason to apologize when it was over. Wouldn't change a damn thing.

Part of him acknowledged that there was something prickly there. Something that he might've acted on when he was playing nice for the holy man. Not so much now.

Still, it bothered him.

He relented, followed her sounds into the galley.

She was leaning over the counter, peeling apart an orange, bloody towel sitting on the counter. He reached for the shelf above her head. She ducked away from him.

"Problem?"

"At the moment? Everything I eat tastes like blood. Besides that, I couldn't be better. "

"Gargle."

He reached back onto the shelf, liberated a tin of salt. "Here."

She hesitated, he waited for her to take it from his hand. Wanted to make her touch him for some fucked up reason. "Not gonna hurt you."

Her body slumped in the sudden absence of tension, but she managed to keep her voice wary, "Used to be a time when I would have believed that."

_Me too._ _But who knows now? _

She gargled, spit in the sink.

He leaned a hip against the counter, she mirrored him automatically. He watched, with growing amusement as she caught herself, blushed, started to fidget.

Stayed like that for a long time. Watching her watch the floor. He liked watching her. Didn't want to dig further into that.

Finally she looked up, past his face, into the dark behind him. "You knew, didn't you?"

He stared for a minute. "Knew what?"

"That I was…like that. When you left. I'd always assumed…"

"No. I didn't." He stepped closer, pleased that she didn't flinch away. Much . "You assumed…?"

Too quickly, "Nothing. I just- nothing. I thought you knew."

_Thought I left because you were knocked up. Stupid kid. That could've been fixed._

He told her so. She looked at him, stricken. He explained the process, quickly, clinically.

"Could've been training in three days tops. Didn't know."

She collected herself remarkably fast.

"Yeah. Neither did I," she said evenly. And then, faintly, "I didn't even have any money. I was just…wandering around the market. Thought I had to pee, you know. And then in the alley…it was so loud in market. No one heard me. No one came. I thought I was dying."

_She gave birth alone. In a dirty alley. Alone. Feet from help. _

_Don't know the alley was dirty. _

_It doesn't fucking matter. Jesus._

"Where the fuck was Imam?" It surprised him, the force behind that question. The outrage that accompanied it. Surprised her too apparently.

She blanched, blinked rapidly. "I-I dunno. Working."

"While you bled out in the street."

She shook her head, rapidly, "He didn't know."

"He the one who married you off, too?"

_Should've grabbed his woman._

She made a strangled noise, "No. God, no. Why would you think that?"

He shrugged. "His woman's the one paying me. Said he didn't even know."

"Paying you?" She was quiet for a long time and then, "God, I'm so stupid. I'm just a job. Jesus. And I thought…" she trailed off, shook her head in disbelief.

_Thought I came to your rescue. Cause I missed you. Wanted to see you._

Almost laughed. Didn't. Wasn't really sure she was wrong.

_Didn't throw her in cryo. Started training her again. _

_Whatever_.

It didn't matter why he'd come. He showed up, collected his pay, done his part. Hadn't even killed anyone he wasn't supposed to.

He brushed her away, peered inside the cooler. Kinda empty. He eyed her, annoyed. She'd been sneaking food. How had he not noticed that?

_Not exactly sneaking. Didn't tell her **not** to. _

"So why did you leave then, Riddick?"

He closed the door, leaned against it. Studied her. Less annoyed, more interested. It was strange having another heartbeat to listen to. Having that new-familiar scent drifting around. Seeing soft curves where there used to be hard angles. Enjoyed discovering those new soft places during workouts though.

She crossed her arms over her chest, reddening.

_Right. She can see too. _

He grinned wolfishly, took his time meeting her eyes. "Seemed like the thing to do, kid. Didn't know he was so fucking useless."

The shyness melted right off. He watched her bristle, bathed in the heat of her anger.

"Don't pretend like you could've done better. You couldn't have. You didn't. You didn't even try."

Her wrist was like glass in his hand. She didn't struggle. He pulled her close, breathed over her shoulder, down her back.

He let his voice drop, whispered, "Yeah, you're probably right. Never was very good at playin' make believe though."

He felt her shudder run through him like a live current.

_What the fuck?_

She was tense underneath his hands. But beneath that…

He grinned, inhaled deep. _Some things you can't fake. _

His reaction wasn't expected. Wasn't unpleasant either.

And he couldn't stop. Didn't really want to. She was calling for him. Her lips weren't moving. But he heard it, felt her words crawling around beneath his skin.

He captured her free wrist, secured them both in one of his hands. Continued his pursuit with the other. Appreciated the feel of full hips under his fingertips. Slid his hand underneath the shirt she was wearing and appreciated the skin there too.

* * *

His lips on hers shifted her into gear. She struggled and his grip got tighter. She twisted her head away and his lips found her neck.

His hand cupped her breast, warm and frighteningly pleasant. He messaged her not quite gently, but with a lot less force than he was capable of.

_He wants you to want this. _

"If you're going to rape me, do it."

In the semi dark she could see his eyes glint thoughtfully.

_Stupid. Shut up. _Her mouth and mind worked autonomously. "You don't need me to enjoy it."

He breathed a laugh into her ear, started fingering the knotted material at her hip.

The sarong she'd fashioned puddled at her feet.

She crumpled against him. He drew her closer, breathing fast and heavy. Played his fingers over hipbones, along her thigh.

She held onto him tighter. "You _are_ a monster."

His chuckle vibrated against her sternum, "You think so, kid?"

His tongue was hot against her skin, she shivered. "Yeah. I do."

"Probably right." He stroked the inside of her thigh affectionately. Thoughtfully. "But so were you. Once upon a time. My little monster in training."

He paused, seemed to like that thought, came on stronger.

His breath scorched its way down her back. Tickled the fine hairs there. Made her arch against him. "Hmm. What happened to that girl, huh? I liked her." His finger brushed against her clitoris. She jolted, felt him smile against her throat. "She liked me too."

His voice was lazy, drunken, rolling over her like waves of molten lead. Pulling her down into the muck and madness and dark.

Someone was laughing in her head. Quiet, guttural laughter; and she knew it was her own voice.

She struggled, rallied, "She died in New Syria. In New Mecca. In an alley. In an Embassy palace."

The pressure of his hand abated. She felt bone deep weary, running on fumes.

"She's dead, Riddick. If you're going to…do it, then do it already. Just don't expect a pat on the back when you're finished."

His hands were gone. There was relief so strong she almost cried. Collapsed into the counter in his sudden absence. Tried to rein in some control over her heartbeat. Her head swam.

_He's still here. Waiting for me to make a move._

She gripped the counter's edge, squeezed her eyes closed. The queasiness amplified.

"Oh, god." She slid to the ground, little red dots zig-zagging across her field of vision.

_She was in an empty field, not quite alone, definitely naked. The ground was springy beneath her feet, moist and warm. It felt good. Better than simply standing in the grass should feel. _

"_Who said it had to hurt?" _

_Audrey spun._

_Her younger-older double sat on the ground, at the foot of an altar. __**"**__You again."_

_Her twin shot her a look of familiar scorn. "Me always, little girl." Then she smiled cheerily, pointed up to the altar, "Only one way to get there. And trust me, they need us."_

_Audrey's voice was rocks and broken glass, "How. I don't understand. Why me?"_

_Her double laughed, or growled. Stood, impossibly tall. "Why not us? It's always been us. From darkness to light and back again. We even have help." She looked over Audrey's shoulder, eyes hot, but laughing. "Hey, fucker."_

_There was something, someone, behind there. Audrey couldn't move. The other woman bent, looked her in the face. Stroked Audrey's belly with strong, calloused hands. From inside, something stroked back._

_Audrey was possessed by the sensation. Searched her double's face, saw the skull beneath the skin, found herself caressing the bone, admiring it._

_Her double rose again, leaned backward with a lipless grin. Put her hands on Audrey's shoulders and pushed. Hard._

She woke up against something warm and firm. Something moving. He was carrying her to the medibay. Cradling her. Long strides. Something must be wrong.

_Something's always wrong. I can walk by myself._

She squirmed, "Let me go."

Nothing.

She bucked. "God damn you. I said put me down."

"Quiet."

She struggled, weakened pathetically fast.

Finally nuzzled her head against his neck. Thought about biting him. "Fuck you, Riddick. Honestly. "

He laughed. Or growled. She was sleepy and didn't really care which. His warmth felt so good. So good.

The medi-bay was all white and bright and headachy. Cutting into the dark hallway like a scalpel.

_That's gonna hurt. _

Groggily, she reached up, found his goggles, and pulled them down over his eyes as he carried her into the blinding light.

* * *

**Haha. First update of 2009.**


	16. When Darkness Was A Virtue

He was setting courses when she came in. Of course, he'd heard her leave the medi-bay. Had heard every goddamned move she'd made since she woke up despite trying to concentrate on something, anything, other than her.

Hadn't really expected for her to search him out though. Definitely didn't expect it to please him as much as it did.

When she settled into the co-pilots chair he sent her a sidelong glance, watched her prop her feet up onto the control panel.

"Lots of questions, whoever picks us up. May be a merc ship," she said, softly.

_Those weren't the exact words._

_Why the hell do I even remember that?_

Still, he allowed a little smile and turned his attention back to the screen. "All alone out here, kid."

It sounded more like a threat than he'd intended. She stiffened slightly, confirming.

"You used to like it out in the black," he said, absently. "Once upon a time."

She turned towards him with a funny look, "Back when darkness was a virtue...," she broke off, chewing on her bottom lip.

It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn't place it. "What's that?"

"Old Earth song. We – I used to listen to it a lot." And then, almost to herself, "Can't believe I even remember the words. Such a long time ago."

He had the sudden feeling that he was intruding. Quelled it quickly. _Fuck that. This is my ship._

She remained in thoughtful silence for a long time. Staring at him until he was painfully aware of her presence.

_What the hell?_

He shut off the screen and turned his chair towards her. Kicked his feet up on the railing behind her. Blocking the only exit. She noticed, shifted uncomfortably.

"So…trouble in paradise?"

The sharp intake of breath was the only answer he needed. It sparked a definite interest.

"You said the holy man didn't sell you. So what, you chose to marry this guy?"

"I chose not to run," she replied, tersely. Her chin tilted in something akin to defiance.

He smiled at that. "Yeah? How's that working out for you?"

She actually glared at him before turning back to the console.

He considered his options. Found, surprisingly, that he didn't really want silence from her. Even more unexpected, he was curious.

He turned away from her, back to the console. Began fiddling with switches, aimlessly. "Besides that, how've you…been?"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her blink, stunned. "Besides being married to a sadistic tyrant," she asked sardonically.

"Oh, I've been good, Riddick. Real good. Miscarrying in that alley was a blast, you know. The panic attacks were always fun, too."

No fear to cut that anger. He felt it rolling off her in waves. _Shit. _

"How about you, Riddick? How've _you_ been for the past seven years?"

Not at all what he had expected. _Why the fuck am I expecting anything? I don't even know her. _

A not-so-small part of him cringed at that thought. He dismissed it, flicked the screen back on, and tried to dismiss her too. Didn't work. His thoughts, all of which centered on her, grew increasingly dark. Increasingly hostile.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

He paused, shot her another sidelong glance. She was hunched over in her seat, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's just…Jesus Christ, Riddick… I don't even know who I'm supposed to be anymore. I've spent the better part of a decade trying to cope with living in my own skin; and in less than a month you just _explode_ back into my life and…well, fuck everything up."

He was somewhat at a loss. Couldn't figure out what was wrong with being in her skin. He liked her skin. It smelled good. Tasted better. He felt himself grinning at the memory, turned away so she couldn't see.

But then something she'd said started to niggle in the back of his brain. _**Supposed**_ _to be? _He'd ask about that later. Maybe. He hadn't really liked any of her answers so far.

"I don't want to be Jack anymore," she continued, wretchedly. That stumped him completely. Like this 'Audrey' shit was any better?

"I liked Jack," he said, quietly.

She snorted, "Yeah, duly noted. She- I liked you too. A little too much. That was the problem. I would've done anything for you."

Almost without thinking he jerked the controls violently, jostling her in her seat. Something in the galley below thudded to the ground.

She looked at him, shaken, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Past tense, huh," he asked, striving for equanimity. He leveled out the ship, listening to her grumble.

"Yeah, well, you haven't exactly been welcoming, Riddick. Half the time I think that I would've been safer if you had left me with that freak. At least I knew what he wanted from me."

He grunted, noncommittally. She lapsed into a fidgety silence. He continued plotting courses, pointedly ignoring her.

After a long while she unfolded herself from the chair and rose. Instead of leaving she moved closer, hovering over his shoulder, hesitantly.

He froze, incredibly conscious of her proximity. Felt her breath sliding down the back of his neck. Closed his eyes. Opened them and she was still there.

She nudged him softly. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Yeah, Jack?"

"So, uh, where are we going?"

She didn't back down from his blank stare. Instead, her face hardened into something almost recognizable.

He moved aside. Spent the next few hours teaching her the controls.

She took to charting like a natural, finding quick ways through the heavily populated constellations. After a while he just sat back and listened her mutter to herself as she picked points along the maps.

"You're good at this," he said, approvingly. She smiled beautifully. He relaxed further into the chair.

"Thanks. Abu and I took some Astronomy courses together when we first got to New Mecca. I kept it up throughout Academy, too." She pointed at the grids locked in coordinates. "Nibiru. That's a dead planet, you know? It has been for years. Is that where we're going?"

He nodded. It was where they were going. And he knew it was essentially dead. He'd played a big part in making it that way.

"Long trip," she continued, glancing between him and the chrono. "What're we going to do?"

_That's a pretty loaded question, little girl._

He shrugged. Reclined the chair and shut his eyes, "Guess we'll just have to see."

There was an abrupt pause in her movements. And then an almost inaudible, "Yeah, I guess we will."

He smirked. Fell asleep listening to her quiet noises.


	17. A Perfect Understanding

_I am like the moon. Waxing and waning. La afham. I do not understand._

She stared blankly down at the words she wrote, all too aware of the derisive snickering in her head. The fact that even her hand writing had started to change…

Who the hell am I kidding?

"Jack!" Riddick's voice echoed through the vents, startling her. The pad of paper slipped to the ground and she kicked it underneath a counter where he couldn't find it.

She padded into the small bathroom, looked around for the soap. Sandalwood.

_Just like I had at home. New Mecca. Imam…_

_Stop._

She washed her face, looked up at the mirror. Forgot that she'd covered it with a towel two weeks ago. It gave her an uneasy feeling that swelled until she turned sharply and marched to the medi-bay door.

He was supposed to be in the gym. Instead, she found him waiting for her in the galley; she came to an awkward stop. Looked towards the chrono above the bridge. It wasn't time to eat yet. Wasn't time to train either.

"What's up," she asked cautiously from the doorway. Riddick took a long pull from the mug in front of him. Motioned for her to sit. It wasn't a command so she kept standing.

He shrugged, "We're about nine days out from Nibiru."

She nodded.

"You found a good route. Fast. Nice work."

"Thanks."

He shrugged again, "You're welcome. Got some plans the need to be worked out before we're planetside though. Have a seat."

It wasn't a request this time.

* * *

She didn't like the plan. Not that it mattered, but it would've been easier to explain if her eyes hadn't gotten that trapped panicky look that kept fucking with his train of thought.

At the end he decided to start training early. Gave her a seconds notice before pouncing.

She managed to make it to the door.

* * *

Seeing Nibiru pop up on the radar brought a strange relief that he usually wouldn't associate with the thought of being planetside.

But Nibiru was like home in some fucked up kind of way that he really didn't want to think about. Wouldn't have been a problem except that things had been popping - usually unwelcomed - into his mind as of late.

Jack trying to silently approach the bridge gave him a welcomed distraction. He smiled. She'd managed to make it to the stairs without him noticing.

He waited until she was behind the pilots chair to speak. "Sneaking up on me, Jack?" Her steps paused immediately, confirming.

"No," she said, edging around his chair. "I wasn't trying to sneak."

_Good. Then it's becoming habit_.

"What you said before. Did you mean it," she blurted from behind him.

He blinked, confused. "Depends. What did I say?"

She was pausing, choosing words carefully. He had the feeling he wasn't going to like whatever came out of her mouth next.

"About the…me…being," she stopped. "God damn it."

They weren't going to get anywhere at this rate. He turned to her. Tried to look inviting.

"You okay?"

She looked fine. No cuts. No bruises except for the ones he'd given her. The one on her left cheek was an ugly yellow hue.

_Maybe I hit her too hard. Concussion?_

_No. She smells scared._

Took a second to process that. "Jack, what's wrong," he demanded, less inviting.

Her face crumpled. "Are you really going to sell me, Riddick?"

He froze for a second. Then broke out into genuine laughter. She looked horrified. He sobered, shook his head. "No, I'm not."

She looked relieved, actually sighed a little bit. It made him want to touch her. He palmed the controls instead.

"I'm not going to sell you, kid. I like you too much."

Her little arms were around his shoulders. He could feel her face against his neck. And then her lips against his cheek. Her scent enveloped him, different but all too familiar.

His eyes went dark and hungry and he didn't bother to hide it.

Her smile faltered, then fell. He watched as she backed away slowly. Listened as she fled down the stairs.

He waited a full five mintues before following.

She was in the shower, face pressed against the wall, breathing slowly. He was on her before she could turn, sliding a heavy hand up in between her shoulder blades and down her arm. Wrapped his free arm tightly around her waist.

She swallowed convulsively. He had to give her credit for not panicking.

"I thought you said you liked me," she said quickly, flinching as his mouth touched her neck. He smiled against her skin, nipped hard enough to leave a mark.

"I do," he replied, voice thrumming above the rush of water. "I like you a lot, Jack. Enough to stop when you asked me too." He insinuated a hand in between her legs, stroked softly. Drank in the strangled sound she made. "Are you going to ask me to stop this time?"

"Would you?"

He thought about it for a second, "Probably not."

Her head fell forward against the metal. She stiffened, turned in his arms. Her eyes were as flat as her voice.

"Then no. I won't."

His moved closer, cupped her face, carefully avoiding the bruise.

"Good girl."

Her scent was doing funny things to his head. Made talking difficult. He didn't want to talk anymore.

* * *

_She was going to die. Jesus fucking Christ, she was going die right there on the table. Underneath his hands, before he could stop the bleeding. How long had it taken him to get back to the ship? He couldn't remember. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. The holy man and his fucking chanting in the corner. _

_"Shut the fuck up." There was silence from the holy man. Incessant beeping from the heart monitor. Bubbling in her lungs._

_Punctured lung. Fractured clavicle. _

_Her face shimmered, melted into a sandy haired pilot's, into a hundred meaningless faces. All because of him. _

_She coughed up blood onto his shirt, convulsed. _

_The holy man cried out. Again with the chanting. _

_The chanting that wouldn't do anything. Wouldn't save her. Wouldn't stop the goddamn bleeding._

_"You were supposed to watch her!" _

_And then he was behind her, thrusting into her, still on the blood-stained gurney. _

_She glanced over her shoulder, eyes shining with hysterical joy. "Watch me, Riddick. Watch me."_

_He licked a line up her spine. And then, horrified, watched as her skin began to split like a husk._

_He came hard enough to see stars._

Riddick's eyes snapped open in the darkness. He took a moment to register the warm, sleeping body curled against him.

She rolled over in her sleep, grunted, buried her head into his armpit. He snaked his arm around her, feeling stupid.

Found exactly what he knew would be there. Soft skin with nothing but old faded scars. He fingered the scars lightly, lost in thought.

The medi-bay had skin grafters, even back then; but he'd done the stitching himself. Hadn't even noticed his finger was fractured until it started to swell.

Most of the night came back in fragments. Sometimes it was hard to remember things. Usually it was better not to.

"What's wrong?" Her voice was thick with sleep, muffled by the mattress.

_Shit._

He hadn't noticed she'd woken up. Pissed him off a little. He curbed it, pulled her closer to him.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."


	18. Under Duress

**Warning: Non-consensual sex. Skip if you're squicked.**

* * *

Her breathing changed subtly right before she woke up. And there were a few seconds where she nuzzled close to him, burying her face in his side. He glanced down, watched her eyelids flutter open. Absentmindedly stroked the back of her neck.

And then she was really awake. Trying way too hard not to tense up.

"Riddick?"

He squeezed her neck softly. "Who else?" It felt like the wrong thing to say. He shrugged it off.

She didn't answer, rolled as far away as she could get.

"Something wrong?"

She snorted, wetly. "What the fuck do you think, Riddick?"

He mumbled something, and, exhausted, began drifting off. Her moving brought him back. "What's the problem," he rumbled, irritated.

She scooted back again, inching closer to him. "It's like a tomb in here."

"Hmm," he said, noncommittally, and pulled her the rest of the way to him. Her skin was cool against his stomach.

She fidgeted until he threw a heavy leg over her side. "Quit."

"Usually," she grunted, "people just get blankets."

"Hmm."

"There're blankets in the medi-bay," she said, hinting. And then, "I don't remember it being this cold when I was a kid."

He grunted. "You hated the cold." Sleep was pulling at him with sticky dark fingers. Making his eyelids heavy. Her voice was starting to come from far away. He was really fucking tired.

Stayed up all night, watching her sleep, trying to piece together fragmented thoughts. In the end they all swirled together. Ended up with him fucking a girl he didn't really know, on some mattress stained with the blood of a girl who probably would've died for him at one point.

"I still hate the cold," she grumbled, trying and failing to pull away. "I'm pretty sure that's something that doesn't change."

_She really should stop talking_. He turned, pulling her under him more. He enjoyed being pressed up against those new soft places. And he really enjoyed it when, breathless, she stopped fidgeting and reluctantly slid one of her legs in between his.

She mumbled something into his armpit. Sounded like, "You're a bastard."

He nodded, tucked her further under his bulk, and fell into a dead, dreamless sleep.

00000000000000000000000

Riddick woke up hours later. Sore and hungry. Something was beeping from the bridge. Insistently.

"You've got mail. Or something."

Jack was close enough for their noses to bump when he turned. "Damn thing's been beeping forever. I would've checked it. Couldn't."

She propped herself, clumsily. "Didja know the door's locked?"

She was slurring her words. Puzzled, he leaned over, sniffed experimentally. She giggled again. Held up an empty bottle, helpfully. "Here. It's empty. Found it in your locker. Sorry."

He raised an eyebrow, knowing she couldn't see him. Knowing she wasn't as drunk as she was pretending to be. That bottle had been one shot shy from empty long before she'd found it.

_Let's see where she takes this._

"Gonna check the bridge," she asked, blinking up at him. "It sounds important. The beeping, I mean."

He shrugged, pulled her closer. "Probably control from Nibiru. It can wait."

"Oh," she said, sounding more than a little disappointed. "I can't see anything."

He grunted. "It's dark."

"I know," she said, quickly. "I can see that. I mean, I can't really _see_ it. Because it's dark." She giggled, wiggled her fingers in front of her face.

On an impulse he reached out, grabbed her hand, placed it on his face. She smiled, brilliantly. He found himself smiling back. For a long time Jack traced his cheekbones, ears, eyebrows. She giggled when he nipped at her finger as it passed over his lips.

Her eyes fluttered shut, useless in the dark. She kept stroking his face. "I used to love doing this to you."

His brow knitted, confused. Her fingers picked it up. "In my dreams," she whispered, confidentially. Her fingers passed over his eyelids, he let them fall closed.

"You'd let me touch you. Not fighting or anything. Just touch you. And you'd touch me. And…" she trailed off.

He opened his eyes, stared at her, intrigued. "And what?"

She flushed, "And I think I'm drunk."

He nodded, playing along. "You probably are. That's pretty potent stuff. Finish what you were saying."

He was prompting her, realizing the thought of her fantasizing about him as a twelve year old girl didn't bother him as much as it probably should have. Not when she was naked in his bed, touching him, all grown up.

She shook her head, embarrassed. He watched the the heat creep arcoss her chest, up her neck.

Feeling indulgent, expansive, he touched her cheek lightly, "C'mon, kid. No secrets. And then what?" He could almost hear her resolution crumble. He almost smiled.

Jack rolled her eyes, "And then you'd wake me up and tell me that if I didn't stop making noises you were going to make me sleep in the cargo bay."

He roared with laughter, startling Jack away from him. When he sobered she was chewing on her lip, preoccupied. "Riddick," she whispered, "would you please turn on the lights?"

_Still scared of the dark. Huh. _He took her wrist in his hand, stared at it thoughtfully. Fine bones like glass in his hand. He brought it to his lips, flicked out his tongue. She inhaled sharply. "Riddick. Please. The lights."

He dropped her hand onto the mattress, gently.

"Lights thirty percent." Just bordering painful without his goggles. Just enough for her to see some shadows. She looked pathetically grateful, "Thanks."

He nodded. "You dream a lot, back then, Jack," he asked, pitching his voice low. She shuddered again. His hand circled inevitably up her thigh. "About me?"

Jack swallowed hard, something in her throat clicked. "Yeah. I did. Used to be scared you'd catch me..." She flushed again, furiously. His nostrils flared, took in the unmistakable scent.

She made a quiet, strangled noise, "Even in New Mecca. Even when I hated you. Even when I wished you were dead."

His hand jerked. "You wanted me dead?"

A series of complex emotions flickered across her face. He even recognized a few. Discomfort. Anger.

Shame.

He blinked. Opted to focus on the upward progression of his hand. Much simpler.

"Yes," she blurted into the silence."I wanted you dead. You left me," her voice cracked, "you left me alone, weak."

_And pregnant. Huh. Kinda an asshole move._

_Even though I didn't know. _

_Another asshole move, not bothering to check…_

Riddick stroked her side, her back, felt some promising muscle development there.

"You're not weak now," he lied.

Jack barked out a laugh. "You don't think so? You attacked me in the medi-bay and I didn't even try to fight back. Seven years ago I would've at _least_ have tried to take out an eye."

The word 'attack' rung around in Riddick's skull. It dawned on him, slowly. _She means rape._ "Attacked you? You came," he said, flatly, trying to remember if she in fact had, "And I didn't hear you complaining."

Jack looked at him, incredulous, forgetting her inebriated ploy. "I bled all over the fucking gurney, Riddick." She held up her palms, each sporting four crescent moon shaped punctures. "This," she spat, "is the only thing that kept me from screaming my fucking head off. "

She was furious, breathing heavy, almost panting, eyes practically spitting fire. Riddick smiled, saccharine and deadly, ran a calloused finger down her jaw and shrugged, "But you _did _cum."

"Faked it to hurry you up. It's worked before."

Riddick threw back his head and laughed again, leaned forward and licked around the shell of her ear. "I doubt it."

Jack exhaled like she'd been punched in the gut. "Fuck you, Riddick." She started to rise, he knocked her arms out from underneath her, dragged her underneath him. Her body made to struggle, flail against him. He gripped her hair hard enough to feel some dislodge from her scalp. "Don't, baby. Let me make it up to you."

She froze, stared at him wide-eyed. "So, I'm 'baby' now, huh? You start fucking me and all of a sudden I've got a pet name?"

Riddick heard her through a haze of lust, nodded, "Guess so."

Something behind her eyes flickered and went out. She rolled to her side, searching blindly for something on the side of the bed. He tensed automatically, remembered he'd left his weapons on the top bunk, heard the clink of glass on metal.

_Looking for more alcohol. She wants to be drunk out of her fucking mind..._

_Or she's going to try to club me..._

"Bottle's empty, Jack," He breathed into her ear. "Just relax."

She was panicking, grabbing at the edge of the bed, trying to slide from underneath him. He pried her fingers gently from the bed frame, wrapped his arms around her, cooed some reassuring shit into her ear. She began to cry, ragged heartbroken sobs that cut through the fogginess in his brain.

_She really doesn't want to be here._

He manhandled the thought out of his brain. The beeping from the control room wasn't getting any less insistent. And she was still there; still naked; still pressed against him as much as she could possibly be without him actually being inside her.

That thought hit him hard. _Inside her. Good idea._ Underneath the tang of alcohol she smelled like sex. And his sweat and her fear. Olfactory senses kicked in and his mouth started to water. He groaned, quietly. "Thought alcohol was against the rules, Jack," he rumbled, hiking her legs up around his waist. "Ruins the best of men and all that shit."

"We're not in New Mecca anymore," she said, hoarsely. "And you've never been a good man."

Riddick chuckled. "Good point." He ran his fingers up her sides, up her arms, pushed them above her head. Buried his face in between her breasts, nuzzled leisurely.

The bite mark that her stupid fuck of a husband had left had scarred. Riddick felt the raised welt against his cheek. _Should've killed him. I'm going to have to cut her again to graft that right._

Jack wrapped her arms around him, detached, eyes focused determinedly on some point above his head.

It irked him, and he nipped her hard enough to leave his own mark. Her yelp turned into a strangled cry as he experimentally curled one finger inside of her. Riddick could feel her heart slamming against his chest and smiled slowly.

Jack began to pant in earnest, straining up to press against him and then trying to push his hand away. Riddick captured her hands in one of his, slid in a second finger. She came hard, back arching, twisting her neck at an alarming angle to press her face into sheets. Riddick watched, enraptured, feeling a little cheated that she'd turned away. Feeling more than a little unhinged.

After a while his throat started working again, barely. "How 'bout that," he asked, voice ragged. "You fake that, too?"

Tears were streaming down the side of her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, unleashing more, still refusing to look at him.

Riddick felt an unfamiliar knot of guilt, willed it away. Her body was already relaxing in his arms, and when he pulled a nipple between his teeth she made a sound that wiped most coherent thoughts away.

_Nice,_ he thought, hazily_._

Riddick kissed a trail up to her mouth. Jack's lips met his, enthusiastically. She bit him hard enough that he tasted his own blood and he had to stifle the insane urge to laugh. And then he was pushing inside of her, groaning at the almost painful resistance, lost in the scent of intoxicated arousal. She grunted, and then moaned and the last thread of conscious thought disintegrated. When she started to scream he was too far gone to really care.


	19. In The Morning

_He was fighting something, someone he couldn't beat. Thrashing and stabbing at it, them, whoever the fuck it was. He was uncoordinated, sloppy. Whoever he was fighting laughed, knocked his arms aside and was on him. He opened his mouth to yell and felt soft lips. Opened his eyes to startling, iridescent green._

_" I know you", the thing whispered into his mouth. Time came to an absolute halt. Riddick closed his eyes again, felt something hot and wet roll from the corner of his eye. He stabbed up. Hard. _

Riddick's eyes slammed open. He sat up cautiously, heart halfway up his throat. He swallowed, shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cool air flowing from the vent.

Everything was good. Except. Except Jack was gone.

_What the hell?_

He rolled swiftly to his feet, almost stepped on the shivering body by the end of the bed. _Jack._

He swallowed hard, something in his throat clicked. "Fuck."

She was fighting something in her sleep with everything she was worth. It looked like she was losing.

He crouched, laid a hand softly on her back, frowned. She was freezing. His eyes took in some new bruises, the blood smeared between her legs. His stomach turned a little.

She let out a strangled cry. He frowned deeper, ran his hand down her spine, something that had always worked before. He could hear her heart jack hammering against her ribs.

Riddick nudged her, gently. She woke up swinging. He caught her hands easily in his, fighting the urge to kiss them. "Hey, kid. It's okay."

She sat up slowly, wiping her face. It was dark again, but he couldn't remember calling for lights out.

_Must've done it before I passed out. _

_How long was she awake in the dark? _

"Riddick?"

"Yeah," he rumbled," Just me."

The stink of fear didn't subside. He exhaled, slowly. "What're you doin' on the floor?"

Her voice was small, beaten, "Bad dream."

"Still," he asked, sitting back on the bed. She didn't seem in a hurry to join him despite the cold. "Thought we handled those a long time ago."

She swallowed, dryly, "Yeah. New nightmares." She shivered violently.

_This is stupid. _He leaned forward, plucked her effortlessly of the floor, sat her in his lap. She went rigid.

_Right. I'm naked. She's naked, too. _

_Because I pulled her clothes off…_

He moved her, regretfully, from his lap. The sheet was wrapped around her as soon as she hit the mattress.

They sat in the dark for a long time. Silent.

"So bad dream," he tried, halfheartedly. Jack just shook her head, softly, "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

She stayed quiet for so long he didn't think she was going to answer. "You were drowning me."

He blinked, "Drowning you?"

"In blood."

_I've done that to someone before. New Syria? _

He looked at her closely. "Why was I drowning you?"

She blinked in the dark, "Why do you do any of the shit you do?" She squeezed her eyes shut, "Jesus. I didn't mean to say that."

"Fair enough."

She nodded, looking ill. "It was just…bizarre. Imam was there. He was praying."

Riddick snorted. "That's helpful."

Jack smiled, ruefully. "Yeah." And then, after a while, "He tried, you know. He gave me everything a parent should. I think. I dunno."

Riddick felt his jaw tick, "Except safety." And then, with more force than he meant, "And that was part of the fucking deal."

She was silent for a long time.

"You know," she said, sharply, "I'm really tired of other people making deals about my life."

His lips twitched. "Pretty shitty deal."

She made a sound that could've been a laugh, "You have no idea. Especially since I never end up actually being safe." She closed her eyes again. "Shit."

His eyes narrowed. "Didn't mean to say that either?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not out loud." And then, quietly, "But no secrets, right?"

He stared at her, nonplussed. _When did I say that?_

_Probably last night. Probably said a lot of shit…_ He forcibly derailed that train of thought.

Watched her wrap the sheet tighter around her shoulders. She moved slowly, cautiously. Like she was in pain.

_Not like. She is. Probably a lot. _

He wondered briefly how many times she'd actually had sex. Sent her a sidelong glance. Decided that it probably hadn't been many. At least not willingly.

Her head was ducked into the blanket, propped up on her knees. He realized that she was crying and trying to hide it from him.

He placed an awkward hand on her shoulder. Pulled her back into his lap. Sat back, surprised, as she snaked her arms around his neck and sobbed.

_Right. She wants comfort and I'm the only one here._ He frowned down at her, stroked her back. _Poor fucking kid. _

After a while the sobs melted into watery hiccups. Her voice was small and remorseful, "I got you all wet."

He shrugged, elegantly. "S'okay." She nodded, began to pull away. He tightened his hold, more than a little reluctant to let her go.

"Riddick, I want to get up now. I'm really cold." Her voice shook a little. He seriously considered telling her no.

"'Kay." He stood, called for lights. Walked over to the row of battered lockers and pulled out a couple of musty blankets. Turned to give them to her. She'd gone slightly red, eyes pointedly downcast.

He swallowed a grin. Tossed her the blankets and pulled on a pair of cargoes. Left his shirt off. Jack was bundled in the blankets, feet dangling off the edge of the bed. She looked like a child. His eyes slid to the bloody sheet crumpled at the edge of the bed. His stomach turned a little more.

"I'll look at the heating unit later. Been broken since you –," he stopped. "It's broken."

He was all too uncomfortable with the way her eyes zeroed in on him in the darkness.

"So you've just been out here alone," she asked, quietly. "In the cold? In the dark ?"

He shrugged, not liking the way this conversation was heading. There was lot of underlying shit in those questions. None of which he felt like dealing with.

She looked around the room, eyes lingering on the bunk that used to be hers. There was nothing there now, just an empty metal rack. Her eyes traveled up. Rested the holy man's old bunk. Something incredibly painful crossed over her face.

"I need a shower," she said, quietly. He nodded, punched in the code and stood back as the door slid open.

Jack stepped over the threshold, looked both ways down the corridor like she was expecting someone to be there. Turned back to him, flushed again. "I, uh, I think I need a… pad. Or something. I'm bleeding pretty bad."

He felt his jaw tick again, blew out a heavy breath. "That bad?"

Her eyes went wide. "No. I mean, not from that. I think it's just…the uh, normal bleeding."

Riddick ran his hand over his head, slowly. "There's gauze in one of the med-lockers."

"Right," she turned away, took a step, paused. "They're locked."

_Right. I know that. I locked them to keep her out. _

"Forgot." He followed her down the hallway, impressed that she was able to navigate effortlessly in the dark.

In the medi-bay he called for low lights, unlocked the doors and let her pick out what she needed. Intended on being gone when she came back from the bathroom. Wasn't.

She looked at him, surprised. And then distrustful. It set his teeth on edge.

"Better?'

She nodded jerkily. "Yes. Just a little sore."

_A little? Huh._

He sent a sidelong glance to the only cabinet he hadn't unlocked. "Got some pain killers."

Jack followed his line of sight. Another pained look.

_Right. She just got all that shit out her system._

"I need to shower." The 'alone' went unsaid, but it was evident in the taught lines of her body. She was afraid, but underneath that there was a fibre a defiance.

He knew in a suddenly, unquestionably, that if he reached for her again she'd fight him. She'd lose, but she would fight him until he was forced to hurt her. His certainty faltered at that point.

He nodded, turned to leave.

Her voice was low, almost inaudible over the hum of the air recycler. "On second thought...I'll take those pain killers."

* * *

The shower was heaven. For a while. And then it was just hot water beating down on her skin. She shut it off, stood in the stall staring at the dull metal wall for a long time.

She stepped out, shivered despite the humidity. The only towel was the one covering the mirror. She snagged it, wrapped it around and stood there staring at her own foggy, warped reflection.

The pain killers hadn't done anything more substantial than making her stomach churn sickeningly. It'd been, what, a full day…maybe two since she'd eaten. Her stomach lurched, violently. She wobbled over to the toilet, say down heavily, cradling her head in her hands. In that nauseated state, head swimming with disorientation, time collapsed upon itself. Stretched thin. She could've been sitting there for hours. Maybe days…

The hum of the air circulator startled her out of her reverie. Warm air.

_He fixed the heating._

She felt a spark of awkward affection. Didn't let it get any further than that. Stood cautiously, feeling a less than overwhelming wave of dizziness, and tottered out into the main room.

She'd been prepared to climb back into the clothes that she'd been wearing before. Not like she really had a choice, even if they were dirty. She didn't have anything else.

Except that, apparently, she did. Odds and ends, old worn cargoes, battered t-shirts...all folded neatly on the medi-bay's counter. She blinked, picked up the closest pair of pants numbly. They were, more or less, her size.

_He's trying to make it up to me._

_Is that even possible?_

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Settled on just getting dressed. Cargoes and an old knit sweater, faded brown and worn soft with age. She avoided her reflection in the mirror, focused only on the top of her head as she raked her hair back into a bun. It was hardly more than an afterthought, but she wished she had some shoes.

_Maybe boots. Like the kind I used to have. _

She ran her hands down her neck, over the curves of her breasts. Felt a thread of the old horror work its way through her. Just a ghost of a memory.

"Probably useless to ask for a wrap, now," she muttered.

Riddick made noise when he came into the medi-bay and she knew it was for her benefit.

Jack threw the towel back over the mirror, and kicked the bathroom door open gently. Riddick's back was to her, and his goggles were down against the bright fluorescent light but she knew he was staring at the gurney.

There wasn't as much blood as she thought there should be.

"Thanks for the clothes," she said, inanely. "They fit."

He shrugged, elegantly.

_Right. How's this supposed to go? I've never tried to hold a conversation with someone who's... _

She derailed that train of thought, it made her head hurt.

She watched him curl and uncurl his hands, a sure sign he was deliberating. Even in the harsh, revealing brilliance of the fluorescent lights, a shadow wrapped around him like a cloak. He seemed to absorb the light itself, the air, the energy in the room.

A thought, a memory blossomed despite her fighting against it. It expanded, and then imploded with the force of a supernova that left her blinking back tears.

_I used to love this man. I killed for him. Willingly. Because I knew he'd keep me safe._

She sagged against the wall, fighting a failing to keep the thoughts from rampaging around in her head. Didn't realize for some time that he was watching her over his shoulder, eyebrows knitted above the goggles.

When she opened her eyes, he'd folded up the mattress, sheets and all, and was making his way to the medi-bay door. Jack followed him through the ship to the airlock. Watched as he shoved the bundle into the compartment and hit the release button with unwarranted force.

She had to try a couple times before her voice caught," So, is this my punishment? Am I sleeping on the floor now?"

Riddick ran a huge hand over his head, "No. And punishment for what?"

"I don't know, for not being who you think I should be. You came back for your little monster in training and found me instead, right? Isn't that what all this is about," she spat, voice rising unchecked, unheeded. "I'm not who I'm supposed to be. So now you're gonna fix me, Riddick, right? Right? You're gonna break me and put the pieces back together the way you see fit?"

Whatever tenuous hold she'd had disintegrated; and she realized, with a sort of bloodthirsty satisfaction, that a slight line of frustration had formed in between his eyes. If she were anyone else, it would've gone unnoticed.

Except..._ Except I've spent half my life with his face in the back of my mind. I probably know him better than anyone ever has. _

_And he doesn't like that. _

It was revelatory. Something solidified within her; she didn't have to fake the hardness in her voice at all. "I am _not_ your project, Riddick. Not anymore."

Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't the smile that crept over his face. There was a burst of panic when he melted out of the darkness, suddenly intrusively close to her. She swallowed it, turned the urge to flinch into a grimace of intended insolence.

Riddick stared down at her, calculating. His hand moved up to the side of her face. "Good," he said. She shivered a little at current of real pleasure she heard there. He moved closer, lips brushing against her ear. "I can respect that, Jack. You standin' up, being all brave and shit when we both know I could drop you right here." He inhaled deep, scenting her. "Reminds me of a girl I used to know."

She reminded herself to breathe, slow breaths, controlled. She needed control. "What do you want from me, Riddick?"

He chuckled, darkly. Promising things she didn't really want to think about. "Right now? I'll settle on teaching you the controls. Get up to the bridge. I wanna watch you fly."


	20. Safe And Sound

It was always cold when she woke up. Something she had her suspicions about. It wasn't exactly inconceivable to think that he'd make himself the only other source of real heat in the room.

She lay in her bed for an unbearable amount of time, knowing where she'd end up and hating herself for it.

_This is ridiculous. Held hostage by the temperature. _Jack glared at Riddick's slumbering form, eyeing the sliver of mattress visible underneath his bulk_. Fuck it._

She slipped out of her bunk, pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders and tiptoed over to Riddick's cot. Stared down at him for a long time lost in thought. It hit her as both comical and heartbreaking to see him stretched out, sleeping soundly on the paper thin mattress.

It struck a dormant chord, stirring up some strangely affectionate feelings that she was entirely uncomfortable with. She cleared her throat loudly, stepping back outside of striking distance. Just in case.

The only sign of his transition from slumber was the barely noticeable shift in his breathing. She wondered vaguely if he would teach her how to do that. Cleared her throat again, intent implicit. Without speaking Riddick rolled to face her, stretching like a cat.

_Jesus Christ, he's huge._

With painstaking care she climbed onto the cot, simultaneously sighing at feel of his warmth and trying not to touch him too much. A pointless attempt, she realized when his arm snaked around her waist and pulled her flush to him.

"Wouldn't want you to fall." She felt him smile against the top of her head.

"Yeah," she asked, flatly. "Don't really seem too worried about me freezing to death though. Funny how all the blankets kinda disappeared."

He pulled back a little, had the audacity to sound affronted. "What? I fixed the heating for you. I'm tryin' to be nice. "

In the back of her mind she acknowledged that this was somewhat treacherous ground. Whatever fucked up pang of guilt that had compelled him to fix the heat had worn thin over the past week. He was still playing nice; but he could see that same unhinged look in his eyes sometimes after training and she didn't need to ask what he did when he disappeared afterwards.

_You play nice too, Jack. Or this whole ship goes back to being a tomb. All day. All night._

She shifted a little under his arm, trying not to seem like she was pushing him away. "Thanks. It just gets really cold in here overnight. That's all."

He grunted noncommittally and she relaxed a little. Sleep didn't come. It never did, not really. Sometimes, if their workout had been intense enough, she would doze next to him taking comfort from the heat he radiated, too tired to notice or care about his intrusive proximity.

When it didn't they would talk. More specifically, she would talk and he would listen. But, to her surprise, he answered every question she shot his way. She liked those times, it made the dark a little less all consuming knowing that he was in it.

Sleep didn't come. "Tell me about Nibiru," she asked hopefully.

Riddick's answer was to roll onto his back and rub his face. "One of those nights?"

In the dark she could almost picture the smile sliding across his face. She shivered, blamed it on the cold.

"It's hot there." His breath was warm on her neck, something she wished she didn't notice. "Sticky hot. Humid. Makes you sweat."

An intense memory of him licking sweat from between her breasts seared through her mind. She laughed weakly, "My hair's going to frizz."

Riddickchuckled quietly, began playing with her hair. It felt good. "Don't worry. Nobody's gonna see it."

That hit her like a bucket of ice water. _Right. Because I'll be wearing a slave hood. And chains. I hate this._

His hand trailed down her neck, fingers zeroing in on her jugular. For a second she swore she heard his breath catch, shook off the thought immediately. His fingers stayed there.

"Short days, too. Weird solar rotation or some shit like that. Real long nights."

Her voice almost failed her. Whether his proximity or the sour turn of conversation, the realization of what was to come, she started choking up. "Your kinda place, huh?"

His lips were now unavoidably close, breath tickling the fine hair on the back of her neck.

"I don't have a place, princess," he replied, all sweetness over steel. "Ask your holy man, he'll tell you that."

"Everyone has a place." Even as she said it she tasted the lie in her throat.

Riddick just snorted quietly. Let his fingers walk themselves down her clavicle; and the biting cold seemed a little further away.

* * *

He'd heard her the second she'd stepped out of bed. Smiled when her gasped at the icy chill of the metal floor. She'd hesitated by his bed, probably looking for other options - like there were any- and he seriously contemplated grabbing her when she stepped close enough. Didn't though. Her willingness satisfied him more than he was willing to admit.

She was warm and more or less obliging lying next to him. The talking was okay too.

He leaned in, testing the boundaries. Could tell she tried real hard to suppress that shiver. Inhaled. Something was missing.

"You're not afraid." His lips twitched.

_Huh_.

"No. I'm not." She sighed, surprised him by rolling over in his arms to face him. "I don't like this, Riddick."

He sighed loudly, hoping she'd realize and end that train of conversation. Instead her fingers snaked up and pressed against his lips. He tried not to smile.

"I don't like this," she said, doggedly, "but…as fucked up as it is…I don't have anywhere else. For all I know, Imam, Lajjun…my whole fucking family is dead. I hate it." Her fingers fell away from his mouth. His tongue flicked out reflexively, searching for her taste.

_I'm an asshole,_ he realized, amused. _She's spilling her guts and I'm getting off on tasting her fingers._

Jack turned away from him, began crying in earnest for the first time since they'd had sex. "I hate it. You might be the only person I have left and that terrifies me."

He was considerably less amused. His voice dropped, low and quiet in the pressing darkness. "Everyone their place, princess."

She started sobbing hard at that. He kissed the back of her neck, brought one hand around to cup her breast. At some point her crying dissolved into muffled hiccups and she pressed gently against his hand. He turned her over, striving for gentleness, but not really caring if he accomplished it or not.

Her face was still wet with tears. He enjoyed licking them away more than he probably should've. She shocked him by tangling her fingers in his and moving their hands down her body.

_Huh. That's new._His revelation from their first sexual encounter creeped into his mind, left him scowling down at her in the dark. _Right._ _She's just looking for comfort and I'm the only one here._

But her mouth was on him, hot and willing…and eager. Opening up to his hungry kisses, sometimes even returning them. She wriggled out of her sweater and baggy pants, batting away his hands when he attempted to just rip them off.

"Gentle. These are the only clothes I have," she murmured against his lips.

"I'll get you more," he rumbled back. "Anything you want, princess." The words came out unbidden, unchecked.

Her eyes went wide and wondering, zeroing in on his in the dark. Her arousal kicked in hard, drowning him in the scent. For a heartbreaking second her hand came up to touch his face and he leaned into it. Then she was pulling on his shirt, struggling to get it over his head.

His lips twisted into a sardonic smile. _Right. Fucking for comfort. Just part of the service._

It wasn't as easy slipping into that mode of thought. His arousal was now spiked with more than a little irritation. She grabbed at him, kissed him with a kind of unhinged desperation that set his teeth on edge. He pulled back abruptly, knocking her hands from his shoulders.

She sat up, breathing hard, blinking owlishly into the dark. "What- what're you doing?"

He pushed away from her, coming to stand at the edge of the bed out of her small range of sight. She blinked again, pulled her sweater into her lap to cover herself; a more familiar scent began filtering through the room. He smiled a razor blade smile.

"What're you doing, Riddick?" She was getting scared. He hated and loved it. It made his head pound and swirl. It made him want to throw up.

Silently he sidestepped around the bed, came right up to her shoulder. She jumped when he breathed into her ear.

"You want me to fuck you, Jack? Sober and everything?"

She swallowed and he heard something click in the back of her throat. She gripped the sweater a little closer to her.

_Ah. Right. Rethinking it now, princess?_

"I-I thought…"

"You thought what?" He was in front of her now, leaning over the bed, taking vicious pleasure in the knowledge that she couldn't see him.

"I don't know," she choked. Sounded like she was going to cry. He rolled his eyes, pushed her back onto the mattress less than gently.

"Riddick, what're you doing?" Nothing hiding that fear now. He laughed, tried to pull the sweater away. She clung to it so he had to rip it away. Accusation and despair fought for dominance in her tone, "You said you wouldn't!"

_Did I say that? Doesn't sound like something I'd say._

Nuzzled her breast.

"Relax. I'm just doin' what you wanted. Tellin' you a bedtime story."

Her hands went to his chest pushing him away. He grabbed them, pulled them underneath her head.

"Be still, Jack."

She shuddered underneath him and he fought the urge to just sink into her, into oblivion. Fuck the consequences. Easier that way. There was always the cryolockers.

_No. No there's not. Not anymore._

He pushed off of her, crouched on the floor in between her legs. She went rigid.

"Relax."

She did. Barely.

_Good enough. _

"Once upon a time," he started, running his fingertips up her calves, "I did a good thing. Saved a girl." He kissed her inner thigh, enjoying the shiver that ran up her legs. He bit down, exalted in the scent of fear tainted arousal. "Best thing I've ever done in my life."

He began absentmindedly massaging her calves. Got lost in the delicious noises she made. Realized, somewhat regretfully, that she hadn't made any of those noises the last time.

"The kid was something else. Think you would've liked her." He kissed the juncture on the inside of her leg. "But one day the kid walks off and gets into trouble. And I was too late to save her."

Jack abruptly propped up on her elbows, trying to see his face. "Lights on."

A flicker of brightness before he overrode the command. "No lights, Jack."

He waited, silently, until she lowered herself back onto the mattress again. For some fucked up reason it was easier to talk without her staring at him.

"Tore apart a whole space station trying though. Lots of people died. 'Cause I fucked up. Pissed me off, caring like that. So I dropped her off, safe and sound. Free from monsters. "

He leaned forward, nuzzling the apex of her thighs. "Only she wasn't. So I tried to save her again."

He parted her with his fingers, taking his time. _Time. We have lots of time._ His lips were gentle on her, coaxing out muffled, strangled cries. He barely had time to taste her before she was gripping at his head, spasming, arching against him. He came right along with her, the force of his orgasm slamming the breath from his lungs. He slumped to his knees, grasping her legs with shaking hands. Whatever expansive mood had overtaken him was fading quickly along with his self control.

"Was I too late," he whispered, nuzzling her stomach rapturously. "I thought I left you safe and sound."

Jack made a noise somewhere between a sob and a gasp. "Riddick. Please. Don't. "

He closed his eyes against that. Against her voice, simultaneously apologizing, forgiving, requesting. Against her hands, pulling at his, urging him to do things that she'd regret in the morning.

He rose to his feet, unsteady, hands clenched at his sides. His jaw ticked with the effort of restraint. The throbbing, delirious swirling in his head had only intensified. He halfway stumbled to the door before looking back to her naked, sprawled out form.

"Shitty bed time story. Sorry."

_New monsters. Huh. Play the hero, save the girl; bring the real monsters down on our heads. _His thoughts were disjointed. Fragmented.

He sucked in a breath. Then another. Leaned shakily against the door frame until the whirling thoughts slowed.

Jack was halfway out of bed. She looked scared. Somewhere in between running to him and running _from_ him. "Are you okay?"

_No. I'm really fucking not. _

"Answer me."

A dry rattle of a laugh whistled past his lips. "Jack. Go back to sleep."

* * *

She found him in the bridge plotting courses to places he'd probably never go.

"Thought I told you to go to sleep."

"Since when do I listen to you?"

He shrugged. Ignored her until she knelt in front of him and wrapped her arms around his middle. Then his huge hand was on her back, petting her skin through the worn, faded sweater.

The metal grating was cold and painful against her bare knees, cutting in. He sighed, leaned down, grasped her legs and easily pulled her into his lap. She straddled him, pushing the sweater up and over her head. His eyes went hungry, but his hands and lips were nothing but tenderness. His restraint slipped a little when she began squirming in his lap and he nipped her hard enough for her to yelp, but at that point she really didn't care. She fumbled with his belt for a second before he knocked her hands away and shoved his pants down, belt and all.

There was a brief moment of panic, mental backpedaling… but he was already pushing up off the seat, pulling her hips down to meet his. He let her set the pace for a few moments, before he took control. Or lost it. She wasn't really clear on what happened; only that she was cumming again, bearing down on him with abandon to match his own. A violent, raw, bottomless sensation that left her stomach roiling. He followed her over the edge, gasping, fingers digging furrows into her hips, thighs, back.

Oxygen returned at some point, her mind settled, fragments of reality settling back down. She waited for the rush of hot shame, nothing. Nothing but a pleasant hollowness. Riddick was stroking her hair, one hand absently massaging her neck.

"Wow. I wasn't really planning on doing that when I came up here," she said, burying her face in his neck.

He chuckled deep in his throat. She felt it in her chest. "Liar."

Jack swatted him playfully, ridiculously content in this moment of intimacy. _Seven years ago I would've killed to be right here, like this. _She tried not to let that poison the moment.

"That feels really good." She whispered. His movements became decidedly more deliberate, fingers gently digging into the new muscles underneath her shoulder blades. She melted against him, moaning quietly. He was getting turned on again, the evidence unmistakable as he was still firmly seated inside of her. She tried to lift herself out of his lap only to find a heavy hand on the small of her back.

She flinched. _Please don't ruin this_. "Riddick…"

"Wait a minute," he rumbled. She settled against his chest feeling more than a little awkward. After a minute he lifted them both up, took the time to unbuckle his pants and pull them back up. Settled back into the chair with her still in his lap.

"You're all knotted up."

She snorted, rubbed her eyes suddenly bone deep tired. "Yeah. Inharmonious living situation. You're throwing off my ch'i, Riddick."

He pulled back, gave her a strange look. "Your what?"

Despite herself she smiled, "My life force. The natural flow. You're like a rock in a stream."

He gave her a blank look before reaching past her to fiddle with the controls. "A rock, huh?"

"More like a boulder."

He snorted and she giggled back. Relaxed further onto his chest.

_This is okay,_ she thought. _Right now, this is alright. _

_But what about later? Will it be alright when he's dragging me around on a leash?_

She closed her eyes against the treacherous thought. The rise and fall of his chest was hypnotic. She tried very hard to concentrate on that. On the warmth of his hands on her back, his breath on the top of her head.

Sleep came and she didn't fight it.


	21. Circling

_The day was dying a slow death. The sun kissed the ground and burned everything away; plant, earth, flesh. He remained unharmed, unfazed as his surroundings were vaporized. _

_Out of the clouds of ash stepped a familiar pair of boots. Well worn, tucked neatly underneath the cuffs of a dusty blue work suit. He was reaching for a shiv before the badge even came into focus. _

_In his head, in his bones, he knew that there was a thrumming, sucking sound as everything around him turned to dust - but all he could hear was the crunching of boots on baked earth._

_Johns smiled, stretching scarred lips across a sun weathered face. _

_"You're dead," Riddick said, annoyed at the uncertainty in his voice. _

_"We're all dead, sentinel, if you don't wise the fuck up," Johns responded. "Me. You. The priest. Even your little girl." He pointed, and for the first time Riddick noticed the small body of a girl lying on an altar some distance away from them. She was in the eye of the storm, like them, protected from the world's unraveling. But if she wasn't dead already, she would be soon._

_Riddick swallowed hard. _

_Johns laughed, threw back his head and roared; and even with the earth splintering apart around him Riddick felt that familiar black hatred bubble up in his chest. _

_"You should've stayed dead," he growled. He took one last heartbreaking look at the girl, turned back to Johns. And leapt._

It was okay, he decided. It was okay that Johns was alive because that meant that he got to kill him again. And this time there was no rush. No interruptions. No need to not make it last as long as it possibly could.

But the body underneath his did not feel like Johns's. The throat underneath his fingers was much too slim, much too soft.

He opened his eyes. The color of Jack's face was a strange hue. Her eyes were wide and panicked. It took a minute to register her nails digging into the back of his hand.

He let go, as if burned. "Fuck. Dammit." He sighed, pulled her up into a sitting position. She leaned over, coughed until her lungs rattled. And then she settled enough to glare at him.

"What the _hell_-"

"Bad dream," he interrupted. "Thought you were de- thought you were Johns."

She coughed again and he felt guilty and stupid in equal parts.

"You okay?"

But she was already scooting into her own unused bunk on the other side of the room, making an extra effort to shoot him an ugly look.

Riddick sat up on the edge of the bed, disoriented. The room was moving in impossible ways. Muttered something indecipherable to even him. And then Jack was upside down. And the steel floor was much, much closer to his face then it should've been. And then nothing.

* * *

He woke slowly. Registered the empty anesthetic smell of the med bay. His med bay. He was in his ship. On a gurney. Jack was gone but her scent was there.

He sat up experimentally, felt like someone was attempting to reattach his temples to the rest of his head by means of a staple gun. His skin felt itchy and stretched too thin, like he'd been lying in the sun, in the sand, for a long time.

The door slid open and Jack walked in carrying a huge pitcher of water. She stopped short when she saw him. "You're awake."

He made an indistinct grunt.

She set the pitcher down and ran a cold hand over his face. "What happened?"

He shrugged, and knew with painful certainty that his left shoulder had taken most of his fall.

"You had a dream. I think."

_I was killing Johns_, he thought. _I was killing him again because he killed you._

That wasn't right though. Johns hadn't killed her. At least Riddick hadn't seen him do it. He shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. Immediately regretted it.

"You were choking me."

He sighed, reveling in the feel of her hand on his face. It was cool, and alive, and not withered and bloody like it had been- _that was just a dream._

_"_Sorry."

"You scared me. I thought you were dying."

He slotted his eyes open. "From a dream?"

"You were screaming, Riddick. I've never heard anyone scream like that."

He was sitting up before he realized he was moving. She was staring at him, unabashed. He decided to focus on the door behind her. "How long-"

"A couple hours," she finished, handing him a glass of water. He drank it like he'd never see it again. "Everything's set for landing. I secured the cargo, the coordinates. You can rest."

"You did that?" He was impressed, and he guessed he showed it because she smiled beautifully. A momentary distraction from the ugly bruises on her neck.

"Yeah. Not a big deal, really." She smiled again, this time a little ruefully. "Thought about resetting the coordinates. Taking us somewhere far away before you woke up. I couldn't figure out how to make a jump." Her grin faded, and then disappeared.

_Stupid kid. Should've hailed the next passing freight and jumped ship. Gone somewhere nice and safe and far away from all this bullshit. _

But even as he thought it he knew that he'd have tracked her down. And he very much doubted that he would be able to be nice about it.

"You don't want to go into the black, kid." It hurt to talk, his throat felt raw and parched. "No place for someone like you."

She looked defiant, ready to fight...and then it was gone.

"I don't have a lot of options," she said, voice arch. "But I'd prefer living on some shitty mining outpost than being dragged around on a chain by my best friend who's pretending to be my jailer. Or not pretending. Whatever."

His mind had gotten sidetracked at 'best friend' and he found himself wanting to pursue that train. "I'm your best friend?" He put on a lecherous grin, just to be safe.

She slotted her eyes at him and snorted. "Like I said, I don't have a lot of options."

He did grin at that. And then he laughed. And then he sobered. "We're going to Nibiru-"

"I know."

"- to refuel and restock. Got some business there, " he continued, wondering where the hell the words were coming from. "And then ...we'll see."

* * *

Her skin was slick with sweat, straining underneath his hands. He gripped a little tighter, just enough to clear his mind, just enough to hear a choked rush of air whistle past her lips.

"You know this, kid," he sighed, letting his weight rest on his elbows on either side of her head.

"What do you do?"

She made another gurgling noise. _Oh. Shit_. He relaxed a little, taking a small step back. The second his foot left the ground her heel slammed down on his instep. He went down on his knees hard. Her knee connected with his chin and his vision exploded into tiny dots. She placed a decidedly accurate hit to his left shoulder and tried to dart away but he caught her ankle, twisted, and she was on the ground underneath him, cursing a blue streak.

_She played me. Knew I'd back up. Damn._

He grinned down at her. "That was fucking fantastic. But now what?"

She shrugged, obviously irritated with herself. "Now I'm dead. You have a thing for choking me."

He didn't like that for a lot of reasons. Mainly because she was giving up too easy.

He shook his head, "You will be, with that attitude. Think."

Her eyes went hot and angry, lips twisted into a sneer. "I don't know," she spat. "Jesus. You act like you actually want me to be able to take you down."

He blinked_. Is that what this is? I want her to be able to fight me off_? He shrugged it off.

"Listen, if you can't get past me, how're you going to get away from someone who's really trying to hurt you?"

"Wait for you to come save that day," she responded flatly.

_Enough of this shit._ His voice went cold and steely on its own accord. "What would you have done in New Syria? If you knew I wasn't coming for you?"

She jerked, whipping her head around to glare at him. "I wouldn't have slipped Imam sleeping pills." Her face fell then. "Asshole. I'm done. Get off."

_She drugged Abu? What the fuck? Why didn't I know that? _

He rocked back onto his heels before standing. She didn't bother to get up, just crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head away.

"You drugged him? Why?"

_Gotta remember to lock those med cabinets again. _

She made a rude noise. " You really think he just let me walk off the fucking ship?"

_Huh. _Riddick frowned_. I almost killed him for that. _

"That was stupid."

"Duly noted. I've had seven years to meditate on it, thanks."

"So have I." He hadn't meant to say it out loud. And he sure as fuck hadn't anticipated the force behind those words.

There was a long silence.

"I know. I won't do it again. Pinky swear. You can just leave me on the ship." She was smiling again, all wistful like she already knew the answer. He gave it to her anyway, just to be clear.

"No." He felt his lips twitch. "Hell no."

"You think I'll run?"

"I think you'd try."

_And I was dumb enough to teach you how to pilot._

He sighed, ran a hand over his face.

"We talked about this. Can't keep you safe if you're not with me."

She wasn't buying it. Didn't matter, not in the long run. But the thought of having to hold her down when he put the chains on set his teeth on edge.

"Why can't I just _go_ with you then?" She sat up, drawing her legs against her like a shield. "Why do I have to be on a - a fucking leash?"

_Because beautiful girls don't just pop up in shit holes like Nibiru without drawing way too much fucking attention._ He crouched down and ran his hand along her jaw, tried his hardest to sound comforting. "Don't make this difficult."

She made a hurt noise, pushed his hand away. "God, you sound like Johns."

He had to try very hard to keep his hands to himself.

Stared hard at her for a long time, not really trusting himself to speak.

After a while, her face went flat and distant like she was dreaming she were somewhere else.

He stood abruptly, strode over to the door.

"Get washed up." He exited, switching the lights off as he went.

* * *

The city was quiet. An eerie subdued silence, suffocated. But underneath that he could swear he heard screaming. A million outraged voices whispering at once. Of rebellion. Freedom. A million years too late.

"Abu."

He jumped, turned to look at a point somewhere above his wife's head. It'd become impossible to look her in the face anymore. Into red rimmed eyes and a mouth framed in premature frown lines.

"Yes."

"There are…men. At the door." Her eyes slotted over to where Ziza was playing. "They have guns."

There was nothing to say, so he said nothing.

Lajjun closed the distance between them. Her hand was gentle on his arm, but her eyes were gleaming with an intensity that frightened him.

There was the sound of boot steps from the house. Tentative at first, searching, and then with purpose.

Potent fear, painful in its onslaught, rushed through his body.

_How much faith, Father?_

Not scathing. Not cruel and enticing like he'd always remembered. But challenging. It had always been a challenge. How foolish he felt.

_I never knew._

The fear ebbed, receded until it was nothing more than a slight shaking of his hands.

A company of heavily armed men rounded the corner to the garden, hands resting lightly on their weapons. Ziza looked up from her toys and smiled at them. She waved. One waved back.

Lajjun whispered something to him frantically, fingers digging into his arm. He heard nothing but the fear, something that surprised him.

There was nothing to fear. Not anymore. He looked back down to her and smiled genuinely, lovingly. Bent down and kissed her. Remembered the first time they'd made love, how she'd smiled against his lips. How beautiful she'd been.

"Tonight," he whispered into her hair, watching the men over her shoulder. "Leave this place tonight."

He pried her fingers from his arm gently. Walked over to Ziza and plucked her up out of the sandbox. Hugged her until she started squirming. Putting her down took monumental effort.

She giggled, skipped over and hid amongst Lajjun's robes. He took one last look at his wife and wondered how he'd ever felt fear. She held her head high, despite the tears running down her face, and nodded once.

Abu inclined his head. Turned and walked to the group of men. Spread his hands, welcoming. "Brothers."


	22. The Best Laid Plans

It was going to take a couple hours to hit dirt. Well, not dirt. Not really. The planet was inhospitable to human life, so everything that was alive was on the colossus of a docking station sticking out of the earth like a butcher's knife. That's where they were headed.

Riddick was checking and double checking their gear bags, even though they both knew he didn't need to. Had packed them both himself. He was staying away from her because she had pissed him off.

_Good_, she thought, more than a little bitter. _Asshole wants me to play along? Pretend I'm okay with being dragged around on a leash because it'll make him feel better? Fuck that._

So, maybe going out bare faced in public – even on a backwater space heap like Nibiru – wasn't the greatest idea. Not with the bounty on her head. But chaining her up wasn't the only option and she knew it. And he knew it too, the bastard. He could leave her on the ship. Wasn't like she was going to take off and leave him there. Alone. In a place he didn't belong. Like he had done to her.

_Like he did to me. _And then, _I wasn't alone. I had Abu. Stop it._

She pulled herself up out of the co-pilot's chair and dropped into Riddick's designated seat. It felt strange. Too big. She wondered if he had had it modified to suit his bulk. Whatever. She scooted to the edge of the seat and peered into view screen situated in the console. Watched the planet roll closer, grow larger on the screen. It was disconcerting. She wished they could've left protective panels up, so she could see through the front shield; but that was impossible since the "plan" didn't involve both of them been sucked out into dead space when they hit the planet's atmo.

That would probably piss him off even more.

_Whatever._ She kicked the edge of the console in irritation. Then again, just because.

God damn, but she was twitchy. Had been since she'd set up things for landing after Riddick had pitched a fit in their bunk. She'd tried to work that off with the short spar they'd had after he'd pulled himself up out of the infirmary. Hadn't done much good.

She didn't want to land on Nibiru. _It's not just the whole playing slave-girl thing, either. I'm scared. I'm scared about what we're going to find in this place. What's going to find us. _It didn't make any sense. She had never been there before, barely knew anything about it. Used to be some sort of huge research site. Now it wasn't. Now it was just another wasted fringe planet left to whoever and whatever decided to stop there and stay. He was taking her to a world filled with people other worlds didn't want. And he was putting her in chains? In fucking handcuffs? And telling her _not to make things difficult?_

Now she was angry again. She kicked the console once more. Hard.

"Feel better?"

She fought the urge to jump out of his seat. Leaned back. Tried to kick her feet up on the console. It hurt. _I really need some shoes. _"Yeah. Lots."

"Hurt your foot?" All concern itself, he slid into the co-pilot's chair, turned to face her. She glared ahead at the lowered protective panel. He reached over, took her foot in his hand and began to rub it. Softly. Thumbs circling her Achilles in a way that made her press into him even though she didn't want to.

"Trying to break my ship, Jack?"

She snorted. Shot him a look.

"Fuck you. I'm the one who scouted this out and found a way in. All you did was kill the previous owner."

He stopped rubbing. Then he laughed. Started rubbing again. "Forgot about that."

A while later he said, "I didn't kill that guy. You asked me not to. Said he didn't deserve to die just because we needed a ship."

"You didn't kill him because I asked you not to." She wasn't sure how she felt about that. That she had – that she _had _had – that much influence over him. Back then, she would've been goddamn giddy about it. Now it just kinda scared her.

"Nope." He shot her a wolfish grin and she had to remember that she was angry with him. "Talked him into , uh, donating it. Used my intimidating manner."

She tried to glare again, but ended up laughing. Smiling at her, he lifted her foot and nuzzled it, kissed it. She remembered her dream about the altar. Only now she was sitting on it. On a throne. With Riddick at her bloody feet.

She jerked her foot back down and stood up. "That…that tickles."

She risked another look. He wasn't smiling anymore. Just staring at her – face unreadable. His hand moved around his back and she tensed. His face went dark, angry. He brought out the chain. Thin and long with manacles and a clasp to go around her neck.

Jack stared at it for a very, very long time. Watched him wind it through his fingers, watched it slither onto the floor. She didn't even move when he stood, chest against hers, warm breath ruffling her hair.

When she finally looked up, she wished that she hadn't. His gaze damn near pinned her to the bulkhead, eyes searching for an answering she wasn't sure she wanted to give.

"If I leave 'em off, you gonna run?"

"No." Without hesitation. "No, I won't. I won't run. Not from you."

"You'll do what I say. Run. Hide. Fight. No questions. No trying to play hero."

"Yes."

The silence stretched out so long she seriously started to wonder if they'd been talking at all.

"Okay."

* * *

The look she gives him then damn near puts him on his knees.

She hadn't looked at him like that since she was a little girl. All wide-eyed and happy and trusting. Like he was back to being her hero. Like he hadn't brought those chains up with half a mind to hold her down and force her into them.

Didn't really know why he didn't.

Maybe he actually believed that she would stick by him without the chains. Do what he said. She wasn't stupid.

That and he wasn't really sure she wouldn't find a way to slip the chains anyway. She'd done it before. He'd taught her. And then he would have to track her down and they really didn't have that much time to waste.

His plan was kinda time sensitive. Get in, stock up, find a doc, do the thing, and get out. Simple. Easy.

If things went as planned she wouldn't even have time to know what the fuck was up. Which was exactly what he wanted.

Having her up an about and cooperating could only make things easier. The way she was looking at him, though…yeah, yeah he could get used to it. Didn't want to mess it up.

So he left with just a short kiss. Couldn't help biting her a little. She seemed to like it.

He left. But not before he heard what sounded like one of the floor grates being wrenched up. And then the sound of the chain being dropped into the innards of the ship, clanking against pipes on the way down.

Just in case.

_That's my girl._

* * *

Toombs watched the little ship break atmo and leave a trail of fire and grit behind it.

Goddamn, but that was a beautiful sight. Eight million creds going past right before his eyes.

He would've done it for less. He'd been looking for Riddick for _years._ Since the clusterfuck that happened on the crazy whore Chillingworth's ship. Back when the bounty had been a lousy one point five.

Now, though? Now every merc in the quadrant was gonna have a hard-on for his mark.

They'd already picked up heat signatures on six different mercenary vehicles since they'd been circling in the orbit of this little hell-hole.

Two had been blown out of the sky before they knew what hit them. The other four had wised up after that and now they were playing hide-and-seek with each other. Trying to ghost the competition.

And that was just fine. Let them worry about each other. He was going to worry about the eight million creds currently headed toward the docking station.

Smiling at that thought, he brought up the briefing file on the ship's comm pad. Nothing he hadn't seen before, not really. The little incident at New Mecca's embassy was just a blurb in long, long list.

Dumpster baby. Ping-ponged around in foster care. First felony at age thirteen. Assault and battery. Now wasn't that a fucking surprise?

After that it was reform school, military academy, and eventually recruitment to the Muspell system's Special Forces. All kinds of decorations and commendations. Until he went ape shit and wiped out his entire platoon and more than a few civilians while stationed…here.

"Well, ain't that special?" Taking his little girlfriend to the site of one of the biggest military accidents ever reported.

Toombs snorted. Closed the file and turned to the crew cabin behind him. The rest of his four man crew were strapped into their chairs, hooked into the cryo-cyclers.

He'd had second thoughts about bringing such a small crew. His last encounter with Riddick left him with the impression that more guns could never be a bad thing. But a four way cut was already paining him enough. No way was he losing out on any more cashy money, not if he could help it.

And then there was the girl. Apparently the same girl he'd watched blow Chillingworth's head into a million bitty little pieces on the Kubla Khan's security feed all those years ago.

She was part of the deal, too. Skipped out on her rich hubby to run away with a mass murderer. Girl had to have some issues.

Still, from the pictures in the briefing files, he could see she was a looker. Even with her junkie hollow cheeks and wide, spacey eyes.

Probably Riddick was fucking the girl. Maybe had been since she was a kid and was just coming back for more. Maybe she'd be useful. Make it a little easier to get Riddick to cooperate.

If not, well, he'd just stick a shock collar around her pretty little neck and make sure _she_ didn't cause any hiccups in the plan. Riddick was going into cryo the minute they got his big ass on board. No chance on that.

He meditated on that for a minute. On what he was going to do with his cut. Watched the fire-trail of the descending ship growing smaller. Smaller.

Soon.


	23. Nibiru

It was genetic engineering at its finest: they had created a breed of soldiers who served unquestionably. And who were really, really fucking hard to kill.

Tried to test their methods on him. And it was glorious. Better than they had ever anticipated. Except that the taking orders blindly part hadn't really stuck. Guess they'd figured that out somewhere in the time it took for him to tear their operation apart from the ground up.

But that was done and over with and now…now Jack was sitting on the edge of her seat, death grip on the controls, trying not to slam them into Nibiru's docking terminal.

"Easy, kid. Easy."

She just gripped the controls harder and edged them forward. He very deliberately did not reach out and take the controls back.

After way too long they were finally connected, and she was smiling like she had just slipped the chains for the very first time.

Impulsively, he pulled her into his lap. Kissed her. She liked that. He leaned back and let her set the pace. She liked that a lot. Showed him exactly how much.

Kept his hands locked behind his head the whole time. Even when she asked him to touch her. That was an experience in and of itself.

Afterwards, she was resting against his chest, breathing hard. Her shirt had come off at some point, and he stroked his thumbs up and down her sweat slicked back.

The needle would go in somewhere around her third or fourth cervical vertebrae. Easier access to the cord and stem from there.

He fingered the back of her neck for a second, lost in thought. He couldn't remember if it'd hurt when they'd done it to him. Hoped not. The plan wasn't to hurt her.

But he would if necessary. Wondered if she'd look at him the same if she knew that. Probably not.

_No time for second guessing. Time to go._

He scooped her up, smiling when she giggled. Took her to the bunk and watched her change. She blushed and it was gorgeous.

Wondered if she'd be like that, after. Smiling and beautiful and soft. Soft skin, at least. Rapid muscle development was almost guaranteed.

Hoped she's still look at him like that.

He could get used to it. She was so damn happy it was intoxicating. Just happy that he was letting her come along and not chaining her up.

Almost made him feel bad about what he was about to do to her.

* * *

Something like shock crossed Riddick's face when they stepped off of the docking ramp and into the terminal corridor. She could see it in his shoulders, the way they went cable wire tight, when they stopped in front of one of the windows overlooking the earth below.

Jack felt herself tense. Unsure if he was about to change his mind. Unsure about what she'd do if he did.

_Threw the chain away already, _she though, as if it meant anything. Wished she'd hid it in a better place.

And then Riddick laughed. A harsh, barking sound. His huge, warm hand was spanning her back, pulling her closer to him. She relaxed, reminded herself to breathe.

"C'mon."

"Where're we going?"

"Shopping. Fuel, rations, shit like that. You see anything you need – anything you want, let me know."

She grinned, elbowed him lightly. "Anything? Even combat boots? I'm starting to hate these slippers."

"Anything," he replied quickly, voice rougher than normal.

She gave him a quick, surprised look. Delighted. Couldn't help melting against him at the warm, indulgent look he caught her with. Fell into step beside him easily.

"What if I want pretty stuff," she asked softly, grinning. "Jewelry and makeup and slinky dresses."

Riddick made a groaning noise that tickled. Smoothed his hand down her back, over the curve of her ass.

"You want a slinky dress," he asked, all interest and hunger. "Shit, Jack. I'll buy you a slinky dress. Buy you two. Can't promise they'll stay in one piece very long."

She giggled, pressing her face against his side. Suddenly so ridiculously happy it made her light headed. "Beast. You're terrible."

Riddick made a concurring grunt. Took her hand and led her through the maze of corridors.

Like they were just two lovers stopping for supplies on their way across the galaxy.

* * *

They had made their way through the station quickly. Bypassing the more crowded common levels and central elevators by sticking to the service lifts on the rim on the great structure.

She kept her word. Kept her hood up and didn't look too hard at strangers. Stayed within reach.

The trade market was massive, took up several of the central floors. After months on a quiet, dark ship it was sensory overload.

Jack rocked back on her heels, grateful for Riddick's steady hand on her back.

Felt him slip something small and metallic into her robe pocket. Stuck her hand in. Pulled out a UD credit chip.

_Oh._ She had thought he'd slipped her a blade.

Riddick smirked at her, understanding. Nodded at the stands in front of them.

The pickings were slim, but she managed to find underwear and pants and soap that smelled a lot better than what Riddick had on the ship. Even found a decent pair of boots that hadn't been worn too much and were more or less her size.

Riddick didn't carry the bags.

Exhausted, giddy from the overload, she waited a small distance away as he haggled over prices for food, fuel, and medical supplies. The seller tried to up the price when Riddick told him he wanted the goods taken up to the ship. Riddick gave him a long blank look. The man quailed and scurried away.

Jack watched, absently amused. She'd almost forgotten that he terrified other people, too.

Riddick stalked back over to her, swiping an apple out of one of the stands on his way. Jack caught the stand owner's eye. Fresh fruit was probably a rarity on a port like this, even if they did have a level for food production. He looked between her and Riddick and turned away.

She snorted. Took the apple he pressed into her palm. "Can't take you anywhere, Richard. You're scaring the locals."

His lips twitched. She bit into the apple, humming as tangy sweetness met her tongue. Riddick made a satisfied noise of his own.

"Stay here for a minute, okay? Someone I gotta talk to."

"Alright," she agreed, around a mouthful of apple. It was really, really good.

She could feel his eyes hard on her. Calculating. She smiled up at him sweetly, not having to fake it. "I said alright. Go on. I won't attract any attention. Pinky swear."

He stooped, face to face with her. "You weren't so fucking gorgeous, I'd almost believe that." She blushed furiously.

"Stay put." Riddick turned on his heel and melted into the crowd.

She waited until her heart thub-dubbed back into its normal rhythm before shuffling off to the edges of the market.

Munched on the apple, watching other people live their lives. It was a busy station for a supposed-to-be-dead planet. Looked like the people there were getting by, even if it was a struggle. The station itself was kind of beat up and dingy – but the people looked healthy enough. Kinda skinny like they didn't get much protein. Nothing worse than what she'd seen on other stations. There were levels for everything. Housing. Medical attention. Food production. Atmosphere and water processing. Waste disposal. Shop and repairs. There was even a level for laundry.

Reminded her of a beehive. Busy, busy. Normal people doing normal things and trying to make a normal life for themselves. Suddenly, she wanted to be one of those people so bad her stomach hurt. She tossed the apple into a bin, half finished. Went back to watching people.

Not a lot of kids around. The ones she saw were working just like the adults. Pushing carts back and forth to different levels, arranging merchandise, haggling over prices.

One of the girls looked like Ziza might when she got older. If she got older.

The thought rose up like a tidal wave, left her breathless in its wake.

_Jesus. They could all be dead and I wouldn't even know it. I haven't even thought about it._

And it was true. Hurt worse than the possibility of them being dead, the fact that in over twelve weeks she'd hardly thought about them.

_Jesus. I was fighting my own demons. Still am maybe. Even if now he's giving me sweets and calling me pretty and being really, really…nice._

_That doesn't excuse it. Abu protected you. He _loved _you. Ziza damn near worshipped you. And you're too busy playing happy honeymooners and going on shopping sprees to remember that you left them behind to deal with a very powerful, very pissed off psycho-fuck. They might've died to get you away from him._

The shame was hot and immediate and all consuming.

_You better not start fucking _crying _in the middle of this crowd._

She wiped her eyes viciously, and backed away to the edges of the market. Wished that Riddick would come back. Get her _out _of there, away from all these people.

She hurried into one of the elevators. Started pressing buttons blindly, leaning back against the wall when the lift lurched upwards. Pressing her palms against her eyes to beat back tears.

She felt the lift come to a halt. The doors slid open with a quiet hiss.

_Right_, she thought_. Right. Where the hell am I?_

Jack peeked her head around the door, stared down the hallway. Double door at the end with a sign 'Sterile Area: Do Not Enter". _Huh. Medical floor._ Tucked back in the lift to see the level number. Thirteen.

Stepped out of the elevator and slammed into a wall of black. Familiar hands wrapped hard around her arms.

"Jack?" She pulled back to look up at him. He looked startled. That faded quickly into suspicion. "What're you doing up here? Told you to stay put."

Her arms started to hurt. She took a long shuddering breath. "Just – just get me outta here, yeah?"

"What happened," he demanded. There was suspicion quickly turning into anger.

Jack shook her head, tears pushing up to the surface again. "Nothing. Nothing happened. Just – just a little overwhelmed." She could tell he didn't buy it, and was pathetically grateful that he didn't ask any more questions – just maneuvered them back into the elevator and let her compose herself.

After a while she could feel him looming behind her. Watching. Waiting.

Sighing, she flipped the robe's hood back over her head. "I'm alright. I'm fine. Really. Let's go load up the cargo."

* * *

He spent the next two hours watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Couldn't figure out what had made her leave the market. What had made her go from giggling and pressing on him and giving off scents that made him wanna do something imprudent...to crying in an elevator. Wondered, darkly, if someone had said something to her. Tried something she didn't like. He fucking hoped not. People tended to ask questions when bodies started popping up out of nowhere. Started compiling a mental list of places to hide a body on a spaceport.

Just in case.

Turned his attention back to Jack. She'd been silent since they came back to the ship. Hadn't even touched the food he'd put in front of her. Unfocused. Withdrawn. Gave him time to get a real good look. Her head was down, shoulders rolled forward. A fat tear rolled down the tip of her nose and splashed onto her plate.

Riddick felt his eyes narrow. _What the fuck?_

Decided, quickly, that he could just cram the body into an air vent if need be. They'd be gone long before it started to smell.

"Do you think they're dead?"

_Huh._ He stopped plotting, started listening. _Who's dead?_

"Abu," she said quietly. "And Lajjun. Ziza. Do you think they're dead? That he killed them - had them killed? Because of me? Because I left?"

He considered that for a long time. Thought about what he would do if someone took her from him. What he had done. Didn't look too shiny for the holy man, he admitted. To himself. Not to her.

To her he said, "The holy man can take care of himself. Made it off that planet, didn't he?"

_Because Frye had a morality crisis and I decided to see where it went. 'Cause it bothered me to think about leaving you and you wouldn't leave anyone behind. Doubt the old man is gonna be that lucky twice._

He didn't say that out loud, either. Watched her nod and push her food to the other side of her plate. She didn't look convinced. It mattered, but he didn't know why. Dead or alive it wasn't likely she was going to see any of them again, either way. Not like he had any compelling reasons to set foot on Helion soil anymore. Not now that she was with him.

_She feels guilty 'cause they might be dead and she's not. She here. With me. And she's starting to like it._

He chewed that over for a while, liking the taste.

Jack looked up at him then, eyes clouded with grief. Shame. _Guilt_. Looked so much like Carolyn had before she'd gotten stupid and gotten killed, that Riddick felt his jaw clench hard enough to hurt.

_Fuck._

He sighed, pitched his voice low and soothing. "Look, we'll send a wave to New Mecca once we hit Deep. Still got the codes from when his wife waved me."

That brightened her up enough for her to finish her food and help load the new supplies. Finished with enough time for him to slip away to the bridge and send out an encrypted wave to Abu's wife. It'd take a couple hours, maybe a day or two, to come back. Satisfied that it was vague enough not to raise any suspicions if intercepted, he sent it, turned to leave. The comm beeped once, twice. Riddick turned back to the console, read the comm. An automatic response.

Codes were no longer valid. More than that, had never existed. Which wasn't right at all. They had been wiped. Wiped because someone had been trying to make sure that the holy man's woman couldn't send for anyone else. They knew.

He wasn't surprised. Not really. Hadn't made too much of an effort to hide his face from the Embassy security scanners. Anyone looking hard enough would be able to make the connection between him and Jack and Abu and that planet.

He stared at the comm for a long time. Then he deleted the message and wiped the codes. He'd tell her something. Later. Didn't have time to deal with it now.

Had a date with a doctor. Or something. At least someone who could run the machines he knew they'd salvaged from the old testing facility. Juggerson, or something like that. Old guy. Solid. Riddick had sniffed him out scrubbing bedpans on the thirteenth floor. Asked him some disarming questions, to make him feel at ease.

Told him some bullshit sob story about how he had a little sister who was sick. Congential something or other. Made her body weak, painful. Made her dependant on pain killers and hypes. Jack's scars would help support that little fib.

Told the man he wanted to fix her. Make her stronger. Offered money up front. The doc had seemed kinda hesitant at first, which tickled the shit out of Riddick. Place might not have been as much of a hell hole as when he'd last been there, but people didn't stay because of the fucking scenery. Everyone there was hiding from something, to some extent. Riddick was willing to bet his favorite shiv that the good doc had gotten in trouble somewhere for having a flexible view on the Hippocratic oath. Still, the old guy seemed concerned. Asked if Jack wanted the procedure, understood the risks.

Riddick had pulled out an untraceable chip with over five thousand credits. Maybe not enough to set the old man up on a Core-world, but enough to make him king of the station.

"She don't need to understand shit," he'd said, and put the chip in the man's hand. Doc didn't ask any more questions after that. Told Riddick the blending process would be easier if she were willing. Assured him, grinning, that if she wasn't, he had ways to make her. Riddick had thought about yanking the man's tongue out through his throat. Didn't. Just clapped him on the back like they were buddies. Like he wasn't planning on snapping his neck after the procedure was done and Jack was safely back on the ship.

The good doctor had told Riddick he could find and secure a room. Privately. Told him to bring his "sister" down to level five in three hours. That had been two and a half hours ago.

Time to go.


End file.
